Sen. Tester hopes 'gamesmanship' doesn't bog down Congress

Montana’s Sen. Jon Tester said Thursday he hopes several important bills will move forward quickly but is not so sure after what he called political gamesmanship stalled an outdoors bill he said was a “slam-dunk.”

At the start of a press conference with Montana reporters about 11:30 Thursday morning, Tester said a bill sponsored by both a Republican and a Democrat, with nearly half of the Senate co-sponsoring it, failed to go to a vote.

“I had a similar bill back in 2012,” Tester added. “It fell victim to political gamesmanship as this one did about a half hour ago.”

The Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act, sponsored by Sens. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and co-sponsored by 45 other Democrats and Republicans including Tester, a Democrat, and Sen. John Walsh, D-Mont., failed to advance on a 41-56 vote, with all “yeas” by Democrats and but all Republicans and 11 Democrats voting “nay.” Three Democrats didn’t vote.

Tester and Walsh both voted yes, as did Hagan. Murkowski voted no.

Tester referred to that bill’s stalling on discussions of several issues during the press conference, including the Senate and House resolving differences in their bills that would provide more cash — $31 million in the House version and $55 million for the Senate version — for water projects including the Rocky Boy’s/North Central Montana Regional Water System.

“I think (resolving the differences) will go well, but I thought the sportsmen’s bill would go well, too, and it didn’t,” Tester said. “So my crystal ball is always cloudy on stuff that goes on around here, especially (when) we’re in the crazy part of this season.”

In advance of a vote on highway funding — both the House and Senate Thursday approved providing $11 billion to keep funding going through May — Tester said a long-term bill needs to be passed, but it won’t happen before the election.

“There’s other things, too, that need to happen that simply aren’t happening here,” Tester sid. “It’s a little bit frustrating.”

He said some issues should not be impacted by the upcoming election, like resolving differences between House and Senate bills on the Veterans Administration — veterans’ issues always have been nonpartisan, Tester said.

“Hopefully. it will not get bogged down in political baloney that often happens here. It never has before, in the past, but we are getting very close to an election, and that is very concerning to me,” Tester said. “But hopefully cooler minds will prevail.”

For the water systems, he said President Barack Obama’s budget did not have enough funding for the projects, which have received “a pittance” aside from funding through the 2009 economic stimulus bill. He added that when he ran for the state Senate in 1998 the cost of the Rocky Boy’s/North Central project and the Fort Peck/Dry Prairie project, on and around the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, each were about $100 million and now are at $300 million due to inflation and project expansion.

Both the Senate and House have funding for Montana projects, with the Senate bill providing an additional $4.059 million for the Rocky Boy project and $3.249 million for the Fort Peck/Dry Prairie system. The House version, which passed Thursday, has $3.184 million for Fort Peck and $3.798 million for Rocky Boy.

The major difference is in a pool of additional funding — the House bill has $31 million and the Senate version $55 million for the Bureau of Reclamation to use on the rural water projects.

Tester said that he hopes the conference committee that will resolve the bills’ differences will pass the $55 million — $31 million isn’t enough to be split between six projects in Montana and the Dakotas.

“It’s got to be at the higher figure that the Senate wants,” Tester said. “This is infrastructure that costs money, but it’s infrastructure that’s critically important for the economy of both north-central and northeastern Montana.”