*These bills are subject to change via amendments. As of April 4, 2025, the following is current:
Bills We Oppose:
Exempt Wells:
SB 358 (Sen. Wylie Galt, R-Martinsdale) – Expand the Use of Exempt Wells
- This bill seeks to expand the use of exempt wells for sprawl development in Montana by more than doubling the allowable usage, and create new “red zones” where exempt wells are theoretically not allowed. Expanding the use of exempt wells in closed basins where water is already over-allocated is inappropriate, unlawful, and threatens senior water rights holders’ property rights. This bill would undo the victory of Horse Creek Hills and still allow exceptions to the exemption where developers could still be granted an exempt well, incentivizing more unmanaged development away from central services to the detriment of senior water rights, private property rights, local agriculture, wildlife habitat, and our water resources. Update: Amendments for water quality and buffer zones around the red zones were rejected in committee. Water quality is a critical component needed to direct growth to utilize mitigation in areas with a lot of water. This can be done right and some subdivisions have been able to change seasonal water rights from agriculture to year-round use by recharging the aquifer during the runoff season. Water use, rights and protection should be with science, not be a political football in Helena. We’ve had more than five decades of adjudication after the new Montana Constitution, but the proliferation of exempt wells for subdivision rather than Homestead threatens to undermine this work, our quality of life, and the environment. An interim study with funding would be appropriate.
- HB 704 and SB 436 were also related to exempt wells and were successfully opposed by senior water right holders, environmental groups, and other concerned persons and entities.
Pollution:
HB 664 (Rep. Bill Mercer, R-Billings) – Repeal Science-Based Numeric Nutrient Criteria
- This bill seeks to eliminate numeric nutrient criteria, which are water quality standards designed to protect against nitrogen and phosphorus, two of the most prevalent pollutants in waterways. Water quality criteria may only be changed on the basis of science. Here, the bill seeks to remove science-based criteria not based on science, but because regulated sectors don’t want to pay their fair share to control respective pollution discharges that can harm local water quality. The legislature attempted to repeal numeric nutrient criteria in 2021, but after Upper Missouri Waterkeeper challenged that decision, the bill was overturned by the Environmental Protection Agency and deemed contrary to the Clean Water Act and the Montana Water Quality Act.
HB 685 (Rep. Steve Fitzpatrick, R-Great Falls) – Repeal Nondegradation Analysis
- This bill would repeal the “Nondegradation Analysis” to a “Feasibility Allowance,” allowing DEQ to determine new “feasibility” parameters that would permit lower water quality standards and abandon the existing requirement that DEQ demonstrate why a new polluting activity outweighs the benefits of clean water and healthy rivers. . This polluter giveaway bill undermines the Clean Water Act by backsliding on protections intended to prevent degradation to our waters. Turning pollution control into an analysis that only examines the economic benefits of development – without examining the costs to the environment – will quickly lead to a decline in local water quality.
HB 684 (Rep. Steve Fitzpatrick, R-Great Falls) – Weakening Waterway Impairment Designations
- This bill seeks to eliminate a statutory deadline for DEQ to respond to an impairment petition. Impairment petitions are needed to trigger clean-up plans for waterways that are failing to support their designated uses (drinking water, aquatic life, etc.) This bill would allow DEQ to sit on petitions without acting, putting waterway health at further risk, stymieing public participation, and unreasonably delaying science-based pollution control and clean up actions.
HB 736 (Rep. Steve Fitzpatrick, R-Great Falls) – Allowing Nutrient Pollution Offsets
- This bill seeks to introduce “offsets” criteria for wastewater effluent limits, allowing a super-charged version of nutrient “credit” trading. In the most basic sense, this bill would allow a credit to be generated for a polluting activity when a reduction of pollution occurs at another place in a watershed. This concept lacks any scientific measurement of how credits are generated, offers no assurance that the existing uses of water or downstream uses will be protected, creates concentrated “sacrifice” zones likely to experience hot spots of pollution, and conflicts with existing state and federal water quality protection laws.
SB 262 (Sen. Forrest Mandeville, R-Columbus) – Eliminate Environmental Assessments for Subdivision Review
- This bill creates new exemptions for DEQ to use when reviewing certain subdivisions or water or sewer system plants, removing the requirement to conduct environmental impact assessments under the Montana Environmental Policy Act. Currently, DEQ conducts Sanitation Act reviews for human health and water quality, which concern potential impacts on a subdivision’s plot, whereas the MEPA review is critical to understanding the offsite, cumulative impacts of development on local water resources, and providing a meaningful public process. Bypassing environmental review processes ignores identification of potentially significant, offsite, cumulative impacts and undermines the constitutional right to participate in decision-making. Eliminating the MEPA process and a holistic water quality evaluation will incentivize “death by a thousand cuts” for Montana’s waterways when regulators cannot see the forest for the trees of rampant subdivision development.
Loss of Local Control and Citizen Participation:
HB 681 (Rep. John Fitzpatrick, R-Anaconda) – Shortcutting Water Review and Authority that Ensure Subdivisions are Done Right
- This bill seeks to eliminate the scope of local government authority that traditionally includes the ability to condition and deny new subdivision developments that lack an adequate water supply. The bill would restrict local government’s ability to consider a water resource decision by DEQ or DNRC, diminishing the scope of review and authority of local government to evaluate the potential impacts of new development on wildlife habitat, public health and safety, the environment, or agriculture. This bill is likely to result in the rubberstamp of new subdivision development without a science-based understanding of offsite water resources impact before decisions are rendered.
HB 614 (Rep. Greg Overstreet, R-Stevensville) – Weaken and Eliminate Citizen-Initiated Zoning
- This bill incentivizes County Commissions to revoke existing citizen zoning districts, which are often protective of rural landscapes and wildlife habitat, in favor of county-wide zoning without meaningful sideboards to protect the values enunciated in the original districts. The bill also drives counties to use the recently passed Montana Land Use Planning Act, which was found unlawful for failing to provide for public participation opportunities. In sum, this bill represents a top-down approach where the legislature is directing local government to adopt new county-wide plans that are likely to allow new development in areas that cannot or should not see a change in the status quo based on its existing values (high-value agricultural soil, sensitive land, wildlife habitat, lack of adequate water supply, etc.) and the hard work by neighbors to balance their property rights with impacts they pay for as taxpayers
HB 534 (Rep. Courtenay Sprunger, R-Kalispell) – Allowing Water & Sewer Districts to Take on Capacity, Without Capacity
- This bill allows water and sewer districts to take on more water supply or sewer connections beyond their capacity. Allowing water and sewer districts to expand service beyond their existing system capacity without a proven and approved plan for addressing the new water supply or waste disposal needs creates a perverse incentive to rubber-stamp any engineering plan down the road. Furthermore, allowing water and sewer districts to operate beyond their rated designs infringes on public participation opportunities, creating a predetermined outcoming of making exceptions to allow for new development without meaningfully engaging ratepayers or the public. Public policy should not support growth at any cost, rather only growth where science-based plans to support adequate water supply and waste treatment capabilities exist.
HB 658 (Rep. Jedediah Hinkle, R-Belgrade) – Diminishing Local Board of Health Sanitation Powers
- This bill seeks to remove the ability of local boards of health and sanitarians to protect waters and public health when wastewater treatments require more than state standards. Sanitarians pointed to the differences across the state from dry areas, such as Plentywood with little water, to areas with impairment, such as unnatural algae in Seeley Lake. The Mayor of Belgrade showed maps of pollution that would threaten their water supply if septic requirements did not mitigate new growth and changes of uses.
HB 629 (Rep. Steve Fitzpatrick, R-Great Falls) – Revise Subdivision Connections to Public Water Supply or Wastewater System
- This bill creates loopholes allowing new development within 500-1000’ of existing, centralized wastewater systems to choose whether to connect, but requires those systems to allow connections without discretion to deny. Public policy should support mandatory use of proximate, centralized, better treatment for new development instead of allowing developers to externalize the costs of development to future purchasers and the environment through use of individual septic systems.
HB 889 (Rep. Jedediah Hinkle, R-Belgrade) – Remove Local Government Control Over Land Use
- This bill attempts to block local governments’ ability to enforce basic land use regulations across Montana in favor of the unrestricted use of property. This prohibits considerations of sensitive land requirements or agricultural protections from being included in county growth policies or zoning regulations. This bill targets protections for rural and open space areas to allow unfettered development and ensures that local governments cannot effectively manage growth and development or consider environmental protections and community needs. This bill runs counter to the fundamental purpose of land use planning and would result in the elimination of environmental and rural protections.
HB 714 (Rep. Larry Brewster, R-Billings) – Expanding family transfer to de facto subdivision
- Counties raised concerns that this provision is already abused by parties using the law for subdivision without a public process, rather than as an occasional tool to help an estate.
- A telling tale is in Bonner County in Idaho, where similar measures of unmitigated new development rights without local processes have led to “under-regulated land divisions and often lack adequate infrastructure, presenting long-term challenges for emergency access, fire protection and storm water management,” according to a local official (Daily Bee March 25).
HB 713 (Rep. Larry Brewster, R-Billings) – “Streamlining” Public Planning Processes and Ignoring Water Resource Impacts
- This pro-developer bill overrules citizens’ and communities’ ability to balance new development and removes the protest provisions for repealing zoning regulations. This is especially concerning given the combined, cumulative impact of other legislation weakening public notice and local control.
SB 532 (Sen. Forrest Mandeville, R-Columbus) – Revise county zoning to allow accessory dwelling units
- This bill would effectively allow new subdivision by right without notice to neighbors or local authority to mitigate risks to public health and safety, traffic, cost to taxpayers, impacts to senior water rights, and pollution risks from wastewater treatment.
- The goal of this bill, to allow additional housing by auxiliary dwelling units (ADUs), is already familiar, as noted by sanitarians in the hearings who spend much of their time reviewing ADUs. Doubling houses by right may be appropriate in some parts of Montana, but a subdivision process is needed to protect neighbors and the community from costs and impacts of what would be NEW development rights and density not appropriate everywhere.
- This would codify subdivision by right regardless of impact and without the appropriate public process for permanent land use decisions. These would be de facto minor subdivisions that could be the scale of full subdivisions with permanent impacts. This is a subdivision by right, including new construction at the time of the first house, considering roads, watershed, emergency services, and infrastructure costs for other taxpayers. The sunset only applies to the expedited sanitation review, not the lack of local government or state considerations for impacts.
SB 174 (Sen. Forrest Mandeville, R-Columbus) – Place RV and Mobile Home Parks into “For Rent or Lease” Without Subdivision Review
- RV and mobile homes are de facto subdivisions. These subdivisions are equivalent in their impact regardless of their ownership structure and should undergo the comprehensive review process of the Montana Subdivision and Platting Act. Bonner County, in North Idaho, filed an emergency moratorium last week, noting that “under-regulated land divisions often lack adequate infrastructure, presenting long-term challenges for energy access, fire protection, and stormwater management.” A September 2011 interim presentation noted that “Subdivisions permanently determine the long-term development & provisions of service of a community.”
Bills We Support:
HB 738 (Rep. Kerri Seekins-Crowe, R-Billings) – Revise procedure laws for county zoning boundary and regulation changes
- This notice would be for significant land use changes by direct action by doing more than a neighbor’s variance. Traditional notice to reach residents by mail is warranted, and the notice to change. The current and recent legislatures have drastically changed the process for substantive changes to land use, allowing for permanent subdivisions and changes of use by different names. Public notice is more important than ever, and as the sponsor noted in the testimony, these changes significantly impact the property people have bought into and live in. The notice for those changes shouldn’t be next to “lost dogs” or “yard sale” in some places around the county as the sponsor noted.
- STATUS: Bill did not pass.
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