about 40 miles from the Crazies. He was
also a Montana congressman, filling
the seat Daines had occupied before he
moved to the Senate. (At least one of the
ranchers donated to Zinke’s campaign.)
In his letter, Sessions described the
Forest Service’s approach to public access
as part of “the war on private property
owners conducted by the Obama admin-
istration.” The Wonder Ranch owners
hadn’t been among the nine who signed
the initial letter, but they were the link
that got Sessions involved. One of the co-
owners, a Texan named Chris Hudson,
lives in Sessions’ district, and Sessions
proposed that Hudson and Perdue meet.
Sessions also recommended that the
Forest Service issue a nationwide direc-
tive to prevent rangers or individual dis-
tricts from declaring paths and roads
public based on historic use.
It’s not known if Perdue or Zinke
took direct action after receiving the
complaints (Perdue’s, Zinke’s, and
Sessions’ offices didn’t return calls for
this story, nor did Hudson’s attorney).
But the week after Sessions’ letter was
sent, Sienkiewicz was removed from
his job as district ranger, pending an
internal review, and moved to a desk
job evaluating gold mining proposals
in another part of Montana. The public
controversy surrounding his suspension
stretched on for more than four months
and brought significant local criticism
to the Forest Service. “Alex was just
following the Forest Service manual,”
says Bernard Lea, who spent 36 years
in the Forest Service in Montana before
retiring and becoming a leader of the
Public Land/Water Access Association.
The day before Sienkiewicz was told of
his transfer, Gregoire agreed to settle
his trespassing charge and pay a $500
fine. The county attorney overseeing
the case happened to be the husband
of one of the landowners who’d signed
the letter to Perdue and Daines com-
plaining about Sienkiewicz. “With him
on board,” Gregoire says, “I didn’t think
I could win.”
Defenders of Sienkiewicz and
Gregoire—a group that included land
access advocates, proprietors of recre-
ation businesses, wildlife groups, and
individuals—cast the developments as
evidence of an under-the-table assault
on public lands that the Trump admin-
istration appeared to endorse, if not ini-
tiate. This spring, Trump requested that
Zinke’s Department of the Interior review
national monuments, designated or
enlarged since 1996, and possibly down-
size them, a step he said could rectify
what he considered a “massive federal
land grab.” Several politicians from Utah,
such as Orrin Hatch, Rob Bishop, and
Jason Chaffetz, had led the downsizing
push, and for years they’d been advocat-
ing turning such lands over to the states—
the strategy Trump had earlier declared
would result in a selloff to the highest
bidder. The department eventually sug-
gested downsizing six of the 27 monu-
ments under review, but the ultimatefate of those lands and waters remains
in limbo; the matter will go to Congress,
and the conservationists have said they
will fight the new boundaries in court.“I ABSOLUTELY HATE THE MOVIE
A River Runs Through It,” says Terry
Anderson, senior fellow and the
former president and executive direc-
tor of the Bozeman-based Property and
Environment Research Center, com-
monly known as PERC. “It destroyed
fly-fishing in Montana.” He’s referring
to the wave of tourists in fresh-off-the-
rack waders inspired by Brad Pitt in the
film, who’s guided through life in leaf-
filtered light by fraternal love and river
sport. Anderson grew up in Montana,
and he remembers when the Bozemanairport terminal was smaller than a
coffee shop, and you could spend all day
on a hike without seeing another soul.
The unofficial state motto is “The Last
Best Place,” and the feeling that untram-
meled natural landscapes are becom-
ing scarce has engendered a strain of
possessiveness. At a gas station near the
Crazy Mountains, you’ll find T-shirts that
say “Montana Sucks—Now Go Home and
Tell All Your Friends” and bumper stick-
ers that read “Montana is Full—I Hear
North Dakota Is Nice.”
Anderson has carved out a field for
himself in something called free- marketenvironmentalism. Along with his job
at PERC, he’s a professor emeritus at
Montana State University and a senior
fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, a
libertarian-leaning think tank. In op-eds
published across the country, he’s an
evangelist for limited government and
private property rights. He views many
environmentalists with undisguised
contempt, and they generally return
the favor.
Like many nonprofits, PERC doesn’t
disclose its funding sources, but
Greenpeace International has posted
records showing that they’ve included
Exxon Mobil Corp. and the industrial-
ists Charles and David Koch. Anderson
probably wouldn’t worry too much
about how that looks: He believes the63
Bloomberg Businessweek October 30, 2017
Retired
lawman Wilson
says ranchers
have become
more obstacles
than neighbors