GREEN in The Middle

The Surprising Conservation Legacy of Senator Conrad Burns

ention former Senator Conrad Burns and a lot of Montanans talk about his gaffes, his errors, his cornpone jokes and rustic mannerisms. He usually had a wad of Skoal in his jaw, and generally needed a place to spit. If he didnt have a plastic cup, somebodys potted plant would do. He offered women unsolicited advice on child rearing. He told off-color jokes, used slurs such as raghead to describe Arabs and repeated a racial epithetthe N wordto a newspapers editorial board. These things tended to make headlines. A New York Times columnist called him a serial offender, and there were times when he sounded like a serial apologizer, backtracking from his off-the-cuff comments. Time magazine called him a shock jock and listed him as one of the five worst senators in the country. By 2006, when Burns, a Republican, ran for a fourth term in the Senate (after a promise to limit himself to two terms), his approval level sank below 40 percent as the links between his office and that of disgraced and imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff became a major campaign issue. By November, he was out of a job. But headlines dim with time. Burns left another legacy that wont fade: tens of thousands of acres purchased for the public use and more than a million acres under conservation management. Using his seat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, which dips buckets and buckets of cash from the biggest money pond in the worldthe federal budgetBurns directed tens of millions of dollars to conservation projects in Montana, despite his frequent battles and lasting rancor with many

in the environmental community. Not very many environmentalists like me, he said in a recent interview in his Billings home. And that makes us about even. Most of those environmental people arent worth piss on a snowdrift. Much of that animosity reaches back to 1988, when President Ronald Reagan vetoed a Montana wilderness bill, one of only two such vetoes in his career. One of those vetoes was the one that got me elected, Burns said of his first Senate race. Despite the ill will running in both directions the League of Conservation Voters gave Burns a lifetime approval rating of 5 percentBurns worked hard to protect some valuable chunks of Montana wildlife habitat. For example, he helped arrange for $59 million in federal money to increase the holdings of the Gallatin National Forest by 70,000 acres. That money protected the Taylor Fork drainage, some of the best grizzly bear habitat in the state, and eliminated the prospect of scores of backwoods subdivisions in one of the states most rapidly growing counties. As hunters, if were not thankful for it we should be, said Randy Newberg, a Bozeman filmmaker who specializes in backcountry hunts on public land. Younger hunters dont remember when the Taylor Fork was checkerboarded with private holdings, raising the specter of locked gates and no trespassing signs. Today, that vast and wild drainage is almost all public, in large part because of Burns. He delivered, Newberg said. Burns helped finance other projects that protected wetlands and elk habitat and migratory corridors by

BY SCOTT McMILLION

PHOTOGRAPHY BY THOMAS LEE

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Conrad Burns, right, and a group of buddies meet in a Billings coffee shop every weekday morning.

buying land that was ripe for subdivision. One project even provided a little extra room in Montana for bison wandering from Yellowstone National Park, and Burns pushed to make it happen even though Marc Racicot, the popular Republican governor at the time, opposed it. That purchase of Royal Teton Ranch property adjacent to Yellowstone would have never happened without [Burns] direct involvement, said Bob Dennee, a Forest Service land specialist who brokered many of the deals on the Gallatin. The thing about Conrad, he took a personal interest. Somehow, he would come through with the funding. And sometimes he wasnt real popular with his party or his [Appropriations] committee. But Burns knew how to slice bacon, and the Appropriations seat provided him with a big cleaver. It made a lot of things a lot easier, Burns said. In western Montanas Blackfoot Valley, Burns helped get the money to put 90,000 acres of Plum Creek Timber

Co. land into conservation management, either owned by the government or under private conservation easement. That means wolves and grizzly bears have an easier time there while property developers dont. (See the Blackfoot Challenge story on page 8.) Burns also worked to boost conservation on private land. He arranged $5.5 million for a Montana Stockgrowers Association/Montana State University/Bureau of Land Management program called Undaunted Stewardship. That program certified that dozens of ranches were using sustainable grazing practices on roughly 1 million acres of private, public and tribal land. While they werent necessarily improving wildlife habitat, at least they werent degrading it, noted Bill Bryan, a well-connected Bozeman conservationist who worked on the program. He predicted that its principlessustainable ranching helps wildlife as well as the ranchers bottom linewill continue to grow

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CONRADISMS
A conversation with Conrad Burns always produces a chuckle, sometimes a horse laugh and usually some insight. On the Abramoff scandal I didnt break no law. It was Abramoff that broke the law. On raising corporate money to build the Burns Technology Center at Montana State University I called em up and said I need some money and they provided it. On the Republican Party today We ought to put a sign on the Republican door: Closed. Under repair. On late-night votes in the Senate We used to go down to the Park Hotel, drink about three bottles of wine, then come back and vote. On partisan gridlock in Congress You cant make it in your own caucus. Youve got to cross the lines. On the chances of former Representative Denny Rehberg winning a Senate seat I told him, Denny, youre a hard guy to like sometimes. On being underestimated by political opponents Its a great advantage. Dont ever look for a fight. Look for the guy whos looking for a fight. On responding to an interview request I will tell you one thing before you get here. That is [Im] just as ugly as I ever have been and I would guess youre no better either.

In Burns modest Billings home, a dining room wall is filled with photos from his political career.

as green groups and ranchers begin to see each other as potential partners. And Burns provided the money to get it started. At the end of the day, it was a good idea, Bryan said. As Burns explained it, ranchers needed to get more involved in conservation issues. It woke the ranchers up that they, too, have an interest in whats going on here, Burns said. It made them aware. He provided funding for a project that allowed scientists to gather grizzly bear hairs and study ursine DNA in northwest Montana, which meant a much better understanding of how many bears are in the woods, where they go, how they live and what kind of habitat they need. That one brought him a lot of grief from fellow Republicans like John McCain, who singled it out as a wasteful congressional earmark. He ripped me a new ass over that grizzly bear study, Burns said, but he defends it today as a common sense measure.

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If we have to live with them damn things, lets find out where theyre at, he said. All of these projects were boosted, funded, or at the minimum, not blocked by a man who early in his Senate career called for the privatization of all federal lands. It didnt take long for him to abandon that position. I did do a pivot, he said, because he was listening to constituents. The more you learn, you change your mind on a lot of things. If you cant do whats right for the land you have no business being a United States senator. Dennee said that when he traveled to Washington to explain complicated land deals, Burns gave his personal attention instead of letting staff handle things. He was the one member [of the Montana congressional delegation] who would come out and sit down and talk, Dennee said. But he also had demands. While his work blocked a lot of subdivisions, it kept loggers and ranchers on the land. If the government was going to purchase private land, Burns made sure logs flowed to sawmills as part of the price tag, that cattle still got a shot at cheap grass on Forest Service grazing allotments. None of the deals was simple. All took political wrangling. All took cooperation among Montanas delegation. But for many of the projects, Burns stayed pretty quiet because, he said, knowing he was involved would only rile some people and slow the process. Id tell people, Just dont let my name surface and we can get a lot more done, Burns said.

Life in Billings
THOUGH HE STILL HAS A CONTRACT WITH A Washington, D.C., lobbying firm, Burns sticks pretty close to his Billings Heights home, filled with political memorabilia in a middle class neighborhood he calls Poverty Hill. A severe stroke in 2009 nearly took his life and left him mostly paralyzed on his left side, which means he walks slowly and needs a cane. But the stroke didnt smite his sense of humor. He likes to zip around his neighborhood in a golf cart that sports an American flag and an orange warning beacon. One of his favorite jokes is to approach strangers in unlikely places, like a fast food drive-through, and ask if theyve seen his golf ball. Most mornings, he gathers with several fellow retirees, men he calls a first rate bunch of has-beens, for

coffee, conversation and a large amount of ribbing. Howd you lose so much weight? he asked one particularly large chum, who rolled his eyes. The group is proudly conservative, according to one member. Conrad usually catches more hell than anybody because he was a government slug, said Dwight MacKay, who also put in a lot of years as a federal employee, both as a United States Marshal and a state director for Burns. On Mondays and Fridays Burns endures physical therapy to keep his body working. Shes a cold-hearted woman, he says of the therapist who puts him through his paces. But hes making progress with his doctor, who wanted him to quit drinking. I got him down to one glass of wine a day, Burns quipped. But I want them all on Friday. The stroke made him swear off the snoose and since he cant type any more, his voice-recognition software sometimes garbles his emails and Facebook posts. Now 78, he says his memory isnt what it used to be, but during a drive across Billings he still rattles off projects hes fundedthe interchange at the Metra complex, the new road to the airport: I got all the money for all that. Ask him about his legacy and the man who often defined Congressional pork as money that goes to Minnesota points to the Blackfoot Challenge, which helps ranchers and wolves coexist in the Blackfoot Valley. He points to the land swaps and purchases that protected grizzly habitat in the Gallatin Range, the better management of rangeland. And hell point to a computer. Take it to Ekalaka or Jordan or Eureka and youll find a high-speed Internet connection. Your cell phone works there too. Thats possible in part because of deals Burns cut in the Senate to improve communications in the nations empty quarters. Wired magazine called me one of the fathers of the Internet, not Al Gore, Burns said. He likes that Montanans now sell cattle on Internet video broadcasts and he enjoys seeing money from the Bakken oil shale flow into Billings. He remembers who his friends are. And who they arent. Youll get a snort of derision if you tell him that the Democratic enclave of Missoula has formed a group aimed at tapping Bakken money. To hell with them, he said. Hes moving slower now. But hes still Conrad Burns.

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