Daines Urges Colleagues to Support His Bills Protecting Montana’s Water Security and Infrastructure

• March 17, 2026

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senator Steve Daines today spoke in a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing and urged his colleagues to support four of his bills: the "Lower Yellowstone River Native Fish Conservation Act," the "Fort Peck Water System Reauthorization Act," the "Cooperative Watershed Management Program Reauthorization Act," and the "Hydropower Licensing Transparency Act."

Watch Daines' opening remarks HERE.

Daines' opening remarks:

Included in today's agenda are four of my bills, including the Lower Yellowstone River Native Fish Conservation Act, the Fort Peck Water System Reauthorization Act, the Cooperative Watershed Management Program Reauthorization Act, as well as the Hydropower Licensing Transparency Act, with my colleague Senator Cortez Masto.

All these bills have critical impacts on clean water and energy availability in Montana. The Fort Peck Water System Reauthorization Act extends authority to December of 2028 for the Bureau of Reclamation to finalize construction of essential water infrastructure. This project is designed to provide municipal, rural, and industrial water from two interconnected water systems: within the Fort Peck Reservation and within Roosevelt, Sheridan, Daniels, and Valley counties. It's helpful to remember the semi-arid climate that we have in that environment. D.C. and Seattle are seeing about the same amount of rain, 41 inches a year.

In Montana we get anywhere from 13 to 16 inches of measurable precipitation in a year. That's why these water projects are so important in really a semi-arid part of the country. The infrastructure is so important. I'm pleased that this bill will help ensure timely completion of the project.

My other bill, S. 3409 the Lower Yellowstone River Native Fish Conservation Act, reaffirms that the BOR [Bureau of Reclamation] retains exclusive ownership, operational control, and financial responsibility for the Lower Yellowstone fish bypass channel. This is where we can be responsible as it relates to the stewardship of our fish populations with these important bypass channels, while at the same time being good stewards of our water to allow our farmers and ranchers to continue to support the most significant economic driver in my state, which is agriculture. The Lower Yellowstone Irrigation Project, located about 70 miles upstream from the Yellowstone and Missouri River Confluence in Eastern Montana includes an Intake Diversion Dam, a screened headworks structure, 71 miles of main canal and 225 miles of lateral canals. The project was authorized by the Department of the Interior in 1904 to provide irrigation water to approximately 58,000 acres in eastern Montana and western North Dakota. This is where Senator Hoeven's ears perk up because I mention North Dakota.

It's used to irrigate crops such as sugar beets, alfalfa, wheat, barley, and rye and enables aquifer recharge for well replenishment. In 2007, construction of a 2.1 mile-long fish bypass channel was authorized to allow the endangered pallid sturgeon access to upstream spawning grounds. However, irrigators in the region are being expected to take on operation and maintenance responsibility of this extraordinarily expensive bypass channel.

I've received dozens of letters from irrigation districts, county commissions, and rural electric cooperatives, as well as individual ag producers and the Governor of Montana Greg Gianforte. I'd like to ask unanimous consent that these be added to the hearing record. Federal agencies, not the irrigators, should be responsible for ensuring the long-term success of the bypass channel in order to protect the pallid sturgeon. And this bill will do just that.

By the way if I could break quickly to talk about how we manage the fish population in Montana. Once upon a time when I was a little kid growing up in Montana, we would stock our rivers in Montana. Grow them in the hatchery and dump them in the river. Fish biologists started to challenge that idea and said would native fish actually be more resistant to disease and we'd see higher fish populations if we stopped stocking the rivers. It seems counterintuitive. They studied that in the Madison River, which is not far where I grew up. I was fly fishing the Madison River before Brad Pitt discovered fly fishing with Robert Redford and they took a section of the river and they stopped stocking it.

And they studied it and they found out the fish populations went up, not down. And they found out that the native fish were more resistant to disease and they weren't as aggressive in feeding on the eggs and so forth during spawning periods. And so Montana no longer stocks its rivers. And our fish populations on a per mile basis are at the highest levels. Our fishery is very robust. So I share that because we're very thoughtful and intentional. We think about managing our fish species like the pallid sturgeon here, and we want to have the bypass channel there. We've got to make sure our irrigators aren't bearing the burden of the cost of doing that, and we share that to make sure our farmers and ranchers and our fish populations can all thrive.

Quickly before I close, Senator Cortez-Masto and I have a bill on the agenda, S.3500 to increase transparency in the licensing process for hydropower projects. I have a few letters of support for our bill that I ask unanimous consent to add to the record. The companion bill, H.R.3657, has already passed the House floor by voice vote. I encourage the committee and the Senate to likewise pass the bill by unanimous consent and get it to the president's desk.

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