In Montana Senate race, Jon Tester exaggerates Tim Sheehy’s stance on public lands

The federal government owns about 30% of Montana’s landmass, and many state residents use that land for hunting, fishing, boating, hiking and other types of recreation.

So, it’s no surprise that public lands are a top issue in Montana’s close Senate contest between incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester and Republican challenger Tim Sheehy. In a 2024 survey, the University of Montana found that 47% of the state’s voters described "clean water, clean air, open spaces and public lands" as "very important" and "a primary factor" in determining their vote, and 36% said it would be one of the factors.

On Aug. 20, Tester posted on X, "In Montana, we cherish our public lands. But Tim Sheehy called to transfer them off, so the ultra-rich can buy them up."

Tester, who is facing a tough race for a fourth term in a state that has grown increasingly Republican, has kept attacking Sheehy over the issue. In an Oct. 24 X post, Tester characterized Sheehy as a "wealthy outsider" who would "transfer off public lands."

Has Sheehy, a retired U.S. Navy SEAL who also runs an aerial firefighting company, backed transferring public lands to wealthy buyers?

The Tester campaign said that’s essentially what he’s doing. But Sheehy says it’s not.

In a statement to PolitiFact, Tester’s campaign said, "Public lands are federally managed, which means the federal government shoulders the costs of maintaining that land. When lands are transferred out of federal management into state- and local-level management, the state cannot afford to shoulder the costs, and the lands are consequently sold off to private entities."

We reviewed Sheehy’s comments and did not find him saying he wants to transfer lands to other entities, whether the government or wealthy private buyers.

Instead, Sheehy has called for greater say for local residents and local groups in how federal lands are used and managed, within a continued structure of federal ownership.

Tester’s camp argues this position opens the door to free-for-all sales of public lands. But making that conclusion requires leaps in logic rather than hard evidence.

Sheehy’s campaign website says: "I believe strongly that public lands belong in public hands. As your next U.S. Senator, I will work to preserve and expand access to our public lands, and listen to the voices of local communities when considering public lands policy. I will oppose any federal transfer or sale of our public lands. Above all, I want to keep Montana special for my children and yours, and that’s why I will always protect our right to hunt, fish, and recreate on our public lands."

In a statement to PolitiFact, Sheehy’s campaign said he "opposes any federal transfer or sale of our public lands," adding that Sheehy would"stand up to the radical environmentalists who are locking up our forests and preventing us from managing our lands and creating good-paying timber jobs."

Public lands took center stage for several minutes during the candidates’ Sept. 30 debate, with Sheehy saying, "Bottom line: Public lands belong in public hands."

Sheehy echoed this position in an Oct. 1 op-ed for the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, writing that local people are better positioned to manage lands than are federal officials 2,000 miles away in the nation’s capital.

"I believe Montanans know best how to manage our lands, not the Washington bureaucrats," he wrote in the op-ed. "That’s why we need more local input and collaboration. It’s critical we listen to local voices when considering public lands policy and when it comes to our ranchers, they deserve their voices to be heard on grazing leases."

Sheehy has sought to draw a distinction between ownership of the lands, which he has said should be federal, and their management, which he says should have a wider role for locals.

The closest Sheehy has come to supporting a lands transfer came in an October 2023 interview with the "Working Ranch Radio Show." In it, he said, "Local control has to be returned, whether that means, you know, some of these public lands get turned over to state agencies, or even counties, or whether those decisions are made by a local landlord instead of by, you know, federal fiat a few thousand miles away. Local control will almost always produce better results than a federal mandate from bureaucrats who are unaccountable to the people that are ultimately subject to these regulations."

It’s uncertain whether Sheehy meant lands should be "turned over to state agencies, or even counties" or whether he meant they should be managed locally under federal leadership. In either case, it’s not clear that he intended for the "ultra-rich" to buy these lands.

The Tester campaign’s assumption that Sheehy would act to transfer federal lands and sell them off to the "ultra-rich" is based on circumstantial evidence. The Tester campaign offered the following points to link Sheehy to a sell-off policy:

Sheehy was on the board of a "free-market" environmental policy group.

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Tester has referred to the Property and Environment Research Center, a national group specializing in free-market approaches to the environment. The organization reported in its 2022 IRS Form 990, which discloses information about nonprofit organizations to the public, that Sheehy served as an uncompensated member of its board of directors, the Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported in June. Web archives of the group’s website listed him as a board member.

Sheehy is no longer on the group’s board, and it’s not clear that full privatization of public lands is on the group’s agenda.

In 1999, the group’s former executive director wrote that he wanted to auction off "all public lands over 20 to 40 years," the Daily Chronicle reported. And in 2016, the group’s founder, Terry Anderson, urged each national park to be run as a stand-alone business, Outside Magazine reported. But Kat Dwyer, a center spokesperson, told the Daily Chronicle that these stances were old and written by people no longer affiliated with the group.

Today, the group’s website says it "explores innovative ways to better fund public lands, such as user fees that are retained for maintenance and operational needs or other ‘pay-to-play’ funding mechanisms similar to the successful model used by hunters and anglers to fund wildlife conservation."

Sheehy is a large private landowner. 

Since 2020, Sheehy has operated Little Belt Cattle Co. in central Montana. It borders federal land, according to NBC News, and one of his businesses is to sell access to hunters, according to New York magazine. 

The federal government and private landowners have negotiated land swaps.

Land swaps involve shifting federal land into private hands through exchanges of different parcels of land. They are trades, rather than one-way transfers.

In Montana’s Crazy Mountains, the U.S. Forest Service has been involved in yearslong negotiations and a court case over swapping 3,435 acres of existing federal land for 6,110 acres of privately held land. In a 2019 public comment filed with the Forest Service, the Property and Environment Research Center supported the proposal.

The transaction’s critics say that the Forest Service land is far more accessible for recreational uses than the higher-altitude land the private landholders would be giving up. "They’re taking all of the good stuff and giving us crap," Brad Wilson, founder of Friends of the Crazy Mountains, told New York magazine.

Critics say private entities’ demand for and investment in Montana federal land would surge if it were to open, particularly given the attention lavished on wide-open spaces in the Paramount TV series "Yellowstone." Major landowners with holdings in Montana include cable TV pioneer Ted Turner; Farris and Dan Wilks of Texas, who have energy interests; and Missouri native Stan Kroenke, who owns the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams and the NBA’s Denver Nuggets.

The Montana Republican Party platform supports federal land transfers.

The state party platform says: "We support the granting of federally managed public lands to the state, and development of a transition plan for the timely and orderly transfer. Any lands transferred from the federal government to the state shall be administered for the purpose in which they are conveyed, while maintaining public access and usage."

However, the platform is not binding on any Montana Republican candidate, and Sheehy’s stated position conflicts with it.

Sheehy’s added anti-land transfer language to his website relatively recently.

In a statement to PolitiFact, Tester’s campaign said Sheehy this past April added a public lands section to his website’s "Get the Facts" page and this past July added a dedicated public lands page. "Sheehy is clearly trying to cover that up by saying what he thinks voters want to hear on a key voting issue," the Tester campaign’s statement said. 

Tester said, "In Montana, we cherish our public lands. But Tim Sheehy called to transfer them off, so the ultra-rich can buy them up."

Sheehy has consistently said that local interests should have a greater voice in managing federal land and has said he opposes federal transfers or sales of federal lands.

Tester’s campaign says Sheehy’s stance should not be taken at face value, citing Sheehy’s affiliation with the Montana Republican Party (which supports land transfers to the state for public use) and his past board position with a group that previously favored auctioning off federal lands.

But neither of those factors support what Tester claimed. We found no evidence of Sheehy calling to transfer federal lands so the "ultra-rich" can snap them up.

We rate the statement False.

CORRECTION, Oct. 30, 2024: This article has been updated to specify the number of acres swapped between the federal government and private landholders in the Crazy Mountains.

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