Majority Of Montanans Support Transferring Some Federal Lands To State

A new survey done by the University of Montana and Stanford University says a majority of Montana residents support transferring at least some federal public lands here to state control. That contradicts some previous polls. The statewide representative sample poll was done over landlines and cell phones in February in advance of a conference last week at UM. UM Political Science Professor Christopher Muste helped put the survey together, and it poses lots of questions about land use, the environment and politics.  We also asked specifically about public lands, and a majority, about 59 percent of Montanans wanted at least some federal lands to be transferred to the state. There was not much support for the tactics of the people who took over the Malheur Wildlife refuge in Oregon. Only about 1/3 of Montanans supported that, most opposed those tactics...more