Daines and Tester co-sponsor CSKT water rights settlement

John S. Adams

Montana Free Press

Montana U.S. Sens. Steve Daines and Jon Tester announced Wednesday the introduction of a long-awaited bill that would settle a century-old dispute over water rights between the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and the state and federal governments.

Tester, a Democrat, first introduced federal legislation in 2016 to ratify the CSKT-Montana compact passed by the 2015 Montana Legislature, but that legislation stalled without bipartisan support. Daines, a Republican, is now the lead sponsor of the new bill, the Montana Water Rights Protection Act, and w...