Gov. Steve Bullock (D-MT) is blaming the legislature, and verbally sparring with a local economic development official in Eastern Montana as he continues to take heat for blocking infrastructure funds for Eastern Montana.
The Sidney Herald has this following last week’s Eastern Montana Energy Expo:
“I was forced to pull out my veto pen and veto some good bills,” he said. “In truth, across the board, there were Democrats and Republicans, there were folks in eastern Montana and there were folks in western Montana frustrated with some of those vetoes, and I said I am equally frustrated because they left town, and I had to make some decisions.”
The governor, in response to a local economic development director’s comment that eastern Montana is the “rich uncle” to unruly stepchildren (western Montana), said he doesn’t believe Helena’s taking the oil and gas revenue, seeing as the counties take 50 percent of the generated revenue.
Rep. Austin Knudsen (R-Culbertson) and Rep. Greg Hertz (R-Polson) both took issue with the Governor’s claims by calling in to our statewide radio talk show, Voices of Montana, on Monday. Click here to listen to the show. (Quick sidenote: the counties don’t get 50% of the revenues to deal with infrastructure. 25% goes to schools. Cities and towns only get 1%.)
Video of Gov’s remarks:
RELATED: Despite Oil, Gas And Coal “North Dakotans breathe some of the cleanest air in the United States”
SayAnythingBlog.com out of Minot, North Dakota has this:
Liberal interests are fond of sensationalizing the environmental impact of North Dakota’s oil and gas boom. The throw around terms like “industrial wasteland” to inspire fear among North Dakotans that the admittedly rapid build-up of oil and gas development in western North Dakota will have dire environmental outcomes.
But by at least one metric, North Dakota’s environment is doing just fine. Despite the spike in oil and gas development, despite gas flaring so bright that it can be seen from space and despite the presence of seven large coal-fired power plants North Dakota has some of the cleanest air in the United States