Bill removes wilderness protections from 104,000 acres in Montana.
S. 3527 — Montana Sportsmen Conservation Act · Filed by Steve Daines (R-MT) · 1 cosponsor · Introduced Dec 17, 2025 · Reported out
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What it does
This bill stops protecting three Montana land areas from development. The areas are Middle Fork Judith, Hoodoo Mountain, and Wales Creek. They total about 104,000 acres. Once the bill passes, these lands can be used for hunting, logging, and mining. Road-building will also be allowed. Right now these activities are not allowed.
Who it affects
Hunters and outdoor companies gain access to these lands. People who want to keep these areas wild lose a choice. Once this protection is removed, it cannot easily be put back.
One thing to notice
The bill removes a choice that has lasted for decades. Getting that protection back would need a new law.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
1 cosponsor: 1 Republicans.
- Dec 17, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Dec 17, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources”
- Feb 12, 2026 — Hearing held · Congress.gov: “Committee on Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests, and Mining. Hearings held”
- Mar 4, 2026 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Ordered to be reported with an amendment in the nature of a…”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 groups reported lobbying about this bill. They filed 3 reports from Mar 2026 to Jun 2026.
Those reports show $146,409 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 27 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 41% of bills with any report.
Steve Daines, who sponsored the bill, received $916,144 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- Trout Unlimited — $120,000 in 1 report
- Backcountry Hunters & Anglers — $26,409 in 2 reports
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- protection — Rules that stop hunting, logging, mining, and road-building on certain land.
- lobbying — Trying to influence lawmakers about a bill. Companies and groups pay people to do this.
- PACs — Groups that collect money and give it to candidates for office.
- sponsored — To sponsor a bill is to introduce it in Congress and put your name on it.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (5,587 characters) on Jul 25, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 14,206 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Mar 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-09-17.
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