Last week Brad Johnson formally announced his candidacy for governor. A former Montana secretary of state, he currently serves as chair of the state Public Service Commission. He joined Montana Public Radio's Eric Whitney for an interview.
You can hear the extended version of the interview below:
Your browser doesn’t support HTML5 audio
Here are some highlights from the interview.
Montana Legislature:
"I think our legislative process in some important areas is broken. I was very frustrated with the legislative session this time, particularly the budget process..."
Federal overreach:
"It has become awfully evident to me that the federal government's intrusion and overreach into policy areas that have been traditionally the purview of the states, is just out of control. We're gonna have to start pushing back at the state level. It's too late for us to expect the federal government to fix itself."
"The clean power plan is gonna be just disastrous for us economically...We've got to come together and create a united front. We've got to look at where we can conceivably litigate effectively against this, we've got to see if we can't rally the political forces and push back."
Economy & Natural Resources:
"It's not rocket science! We are still the Treasure State. Our decline economically, that loss of prosperity that we have experienced in this state is tied directly to the decline of our traditional resource industries and agriculture in this state. We can and should be pushing to enter into agreements with the national Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to transfer meaningful administrative authority over specific tracts of that federal land to land managers in Montana who have proven themselves to be so very capable, and we can do that in a way that fits with our existing management programs for the state lands."
"I think we are missing a tremendous opportunity by not working very, very hard to make Montana the Mecca of research and development into 'clean coal' technology area."