Gianforte stumps for governor in valley, calls for reg reform

Greg Gianforte wants his family around the dinner table when it comes time to eat. But with the current business climate in Montana, the Republican gubernatorial candidate claims more and more young people are leaving the state because they can’t find good-paying jobs here.

So he’s embarked on a 61-stop “Regulation Roundup” tour where he’s asking constituents to identify the biggest job-killing regulations in the state.

Gianforte made his case in Whitefish last week to about a half-dozen people who came out to hear him speak at the Great Northern Brewery. He grew up in Pennsylvania, but during college visited the state with a friend and wanted to do a backcountry trip in Glacier, but couldn’t get the necessary backcountry permits. Instead, they hiked through the Bob Marshall Wilderness from Spotted Bear to Lincoln. That trip was the ticket.

“I knew I wanted to raise my family here,” he said.

Independently wealthy, Gianforte is the founder and CEO of RightNow technologies in Bozeman. He took the company public in 2004 and was bought out by Oracle in 2012. He said today the company has 1,100 emplyees with an average annual salary of $90,000. He wants to see more jobs like that come to the state.

He also stumped for more resource development, noting the state is generally regarded as doing a good job of managing its lands, but the federal government is not.

He doesn’t favor a federal land takeover, but he would like to see more state say in management of federal lands. He claimed that the federal government could be harvesting 300 million board feet of timber statewide over the 100 million it does now.

Gianforte said he also favored more two-year college trade programs that teach students real-life skills.

“We push too many young people in four-year degree programs,” he said.

In high school, he said he wants to the state to make computer science an alternative to the foreign language requirement. 

He also said the state needs to be more accountable, noting the recent scandal where, through accounting errors, the budget was off by $1 billion. The errors were later corrected, but Gianforte claimed no one ever lost their job in the fiasco.

He also said a landowner should be in charge of the Department of Natural Resources and was critical of the Department of Environmental Quality.

“They don’t have an interest in issuing permits,” he said, noting the decades long delays in the permits for the controversial Montanore Mine, which looks to tap silver and copper under the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness.

He said he supported a clean environment, but taking years to make a decision on projects was unacceptable.

On employment, he said the state needs to phase out the “regressive” business equipment tax, corral workmen’s compensation costs and health insurance costs.

On the local front, he said he was pleased that Weyerhaeuser was maintaining its open lands policy in Montana as it merges with Plum Creek, but he didn’t speak directly to the high-paying salaried jobs that will likely be lost from the deal.

He also had no comment on the potential Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. Superfund listing — a listing that has been supported by Gov. Steve Bullock, but not by Republican Congressman Ryan Zinke as well as the Republican Flathead County Commissioners. Gianforte said he didn’t know enough on the matter to comment.