Issues

Public Lands and Wildlife

We are committed to holding our elected officials accountable to Montana values, ensuring that the Big Sky State’s iconic landscapes are protected for generations to come. 

• MCV was the first conservation organization to support the effort to fund public lands through Ballot Initiative 190 and Constitutional Initiative 118. We deployed a virtual field team to get both measures passed with significant bipartisan support.
• In the 67th Montana Legislative Session in 2021, we fought hard to ensure that Montanans received the conservation funding they voted for and secured that funding for our public lands, trails and Habitat Montana – a popular conservation tool used to improve access, acquire more public lands and conserve working farms and ranges in perpetuity. In the 68th Montana Legislative Session in 2023, despite overwhelming bipartisan support, Governor Greg Gianforte vetoed the funding.
• Tim Sheehy, candidate for U.S. Senator, has expressed wanting to sell off public lands across Montana. Montanans overwhelmingly agree that selling or transferring our public lands is bad news and even our state agencies know that Sheehy’s policy stance will end in disaster and privatization. Public lands fuel our way of life and our local economies, so MCV has launched #StolenbySheehy, a social media campaign to raise awareness about Sheehy’s stance and the damaging impact it could have on our Big Sky State.

Clean Air and Water

We are fighting for the future of our planet at all levels of government, pursuing climate action from our officials in Helena as well as the Montana congressional delegation in Washington D.C. Our clean air and water are not negotiable, and we’re committed to safeguarding Montana’s beautiful environment for all Montanans new and old.

Energy

We are working with partners across the state to create good paying jobs to support clean renewable energy for all Montanans, powering our communities and economy. 

• MCV is collaborating with organizations across the country on the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to help create thousands of good paying Montana jobs through modernizing our nation’s infrastructure and providing energy freedom for all.
  

Democracy

Our election cycle is year round. We recruit conservation champions up and down the ballot, ensuring that every Montanan who aspires to work in politics has access to the resources and expertise they need to make their campaign a success.

Throughout the legislative session, MCV heads the Conservation Working Group, a coalition of like minded organizations working to protect the Last Best Place. We release a weekly Legislative Hotlist, informing legislators, lobbyists, and community members of hot-button issues – and how best to vote on bills moving through the legislature. At the end of the legislative session, MCV releases a Legislative Scorecard informing the public on how their legislators voted and naming our conservation champions.

On April 26, 2023, Governor Greg Gianforte signed into law Senate Bill 109 which put in place a new PSC map for the upcoming election. The new map does away with decades of precedent determining Montana’s PSC districts, and instead divides communities without any explanation for how the configuration represents voters’ interests. MCV, alongside a bipartisan group of Montanans and Upper Seven Law, is challenging the new gerrymandered PSC map. Learn more HERE.

MCV is committed to working with diverse partners and actively inviting people to our work, always striving for equity and inclusion, and learning from each other in an environment that does not perpetuate or tolerate discrimination.