Congressman Zinke Visits Valley County

“Montana matters. We’ve got just one representative in the house — but people care what Montana does. There’s the idea that what Montana is is hardworking, and its a true one.”

These were the sentiments Congressman Ryan Zinke relayed to the dense crowd of students, ranchers, and small business owners packed into Farm & Equipment Sales in Glasgow the morning of Oct. 13. Zinke, in his first term as Montana’s lone house representative, has stopped through Valley County eight times in the past two years.

His words to the mostly-supportive crowd struck at the heart of myriad curiosities and queries perched on the end of Northeastern Montana residents’ tongues. He riffed on riding out a presidency rife with over-regulation (“No other country can take a self-imposed $3.6 trillion hit and still earn. As bad as California is [in terms of economic stifling], it’s still a positive economy. This country is strong enough to overcome”) and on the political leanings of his fellow statesmen: “Mostly,” he said, “Montanans don’t like to be told what to do.”

The topic on which he lingered longest was energy.

He nodded to data which posits that the state has enough coal reserves to “power the entire world for 300 years,” and, after decrying the U.S.’s continued dependence on foreign oil, dished his take on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline project.

“If you don’t know Glasgow, Butte, and Bozeman,” he said in his soothing baritone timbre, “you’re not in proper position to make a ruling that’ll directly affect Glasgow, Butte, and Bozeman.” He noted the employment boom Montana would see from the bill’s passage, as well as the lessened dependence the nation would have on foreign energy.

Opponents have said that the job influx would be but temporary, the numbers fading to prior levels after completion of the year-long construction process.

Zinke also hailed the low cost of coal and oil as compared to solar and wind energy. Dissenters have said that this has as more to do with Washington’s big oil lobbying interests and the comparative dearth in renewable energy investment vis-a-vis so-called “traditional” fuels.

Regardless of one’s position, the bill remains in limbo. Approved by the Republican House in one day and the G.O.P. Senate in 30, President Obama overrode the motion with a veto — allowed because while the senate collected over sixty votes, enough for the bill to be printed up and set on the Resolute Desk, it failed to total the two-thirds majority necessary to annul the Commander-in-Chief’s veto power. 

“Even if the senate passes the bill, the President still needs to sign it,” said Zinke, who believes the “60-vote rule,” created in the 1950s, must be amended. 

“As clever as the founding fathers were,” he said, “I don’t believe they foresaw the election of a president who would be both so lawless and so popular at once.

“We have to be a [global] competitor, and energy is our savior.”

Zinke, an ex-Navy SEAL, concluded his 45-minute talk by applauding the Glasgow High School students in attendance, all seniors, for their active participation in politics and offering to write letters of recommendation to supplement their college applications. “I’ve got a good masthead,” he half-joked.

Wheat prices have fallen of late, and the Bakken fervor has cooled. Zinke, though, sees only bright skies ahead — insofar as the nation stays true to itself.

“The idea that Americans don’t work hard,” said the congressman, “is bull. Our people work, and will continue to do so.”

Zinke visited Wolf Point later that day, and will also stop through Browning, Baker, Bainville, and Whitefish on his trek across his broad constituency, the second-largest among 435 districts.