Montana GOP Senate hopeful Tim Sheehy has spent the last several months defending himself against accusations that he poses a threat to America’s federal public lands — a mess that the multimillionaire businessman and former Navy SEAL created when, shortly after launching his campaign, he explicitly called for federal lands to be “turned over to state agencies, or even counties.”

Around 640 million acres, or 28% of all land in the nation, are managed by the federal government — and owned collectively by all U.S. citizens. Republicans across Western states, where the vast majority of federal lands are located, have long sought to wrest control of them from the federal government — a move that conservationists and public land experts warn would ultimately lead to them being sold and privatized.

“If that happens, that really means we’re going to lose those federal lands,” said Chris Marchion, a Montana public lands advocate and inductee in the Montana Outdoor Hall of Fame. “The state of Montana does not have the resources to manage those lands, and the first thing they’re going to do is sell it.”

Democratic and conservation-focused political action committees have aired numerous public land-focused attack ads against Sheehy, most of which cite HuffPost’s reporting that first revealed Sheehy’s comments in support of transferring land and his failure to disclose his position on the board of a nonprofit with a history of advocating for privatizing America’s federal lands.

Sheehy meanwhile has accused his opponent, incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, of politicizing public lands and lying about Sheehy’s agenda for America’s natural heritage. Sometime last month, Sheehy even added a section to his campaign website titled “Public Lands,” in which he declared his belief that “public lands belong in public hands” and vowed to “oppose any federal transfer or sale of our public lands.” The new section sits at the very top of his issues page.

In Sheehy’s first public lands TV ad, released in early August, Stryker Anderson, an avid Montana hunter and hunting guide, says he’s “sick and tired of Jon Tester lying about Tim Sheehy.”

“Here’s the truth: Tim Sheehy knows public lands are important to our way of life,” Anderson tells viewers. “That’s why Sheehy opposes the sale or transfer of our public lands.”

But when reached via email this week, Anderson — one of two key people Sheehy turned to in hopes of restoring his image as a champion of public lands — effectively poured gasoline on the fire that Sheehy and his team have been trying to put out. Anderson plainly stated that he wants to see federal lands transferred to states, a view he understood Sheehy to share but later said the two did not discuss in detail. He condemned the federal government as a poor steward of the federal estate and said Sheehy’s past comment in favor of states taking control of federal lands shows his “understanding of proper management.”

“The goal would be to turn them over to the states,” Anderson told HuffPost. “The state of Montana understands our public lands better than the federal government. Just like we don’t understand California, Wyoming, Washington, Arizona, etc. Let the people in their own state decide what is best for them. Our public lands suck almost everywhere because they have no management. Turning over ownership to the states will allow for much better management.”

Aaron Weiss, deputy director at the Colorado-based conservation group Center for Western Priorities, called Anderson’s comments to HuffPost “old Sagebrush Rebellion nonsense,” referring to the movement of the 1970s and ’80s that sought to wrest control of shared public lands from the federal government.

“States can’t afford to fight wildfires or clean up abandoned mines,” Weiss said. “The inevitable result is privatization.”

Asked how “turning over ownership to the states” is any different than a full-fledged public land transfer, Anderson said the TV advertisement’s anti-sale and transfer message was specific to the “sale or transfer to private ownership,” not state ownership.

“You are correct that turning it over would be a transfer,” he said. “But who it is transferred to is what is important.”

Again, Sheehy’s updated website states that he opposes “any federal transfer or sale of our public lands.”

Anderson’s unfiltered endorsement of pawning off federal lands to states — a position he clearly expected Sheehy to advance in Congress — threatens to effectively upend nearly a year of damage control within Sheehy’s camp.

When reached on Thursday, Sheehy’s campaign dissociated itself from its own public lands surrogate. Campaign spokesperson Katie Martin said Sheehy does not share Anderson’s support for transferring federal lands to states, but did not respond when asked why Sheehy chose to feature someone he does not see eye-to-eye with — particularly on the very subject of the advertisement.

“Your answer shopping won’t change Tim’s position on this issue, which is crystal clear and has been stated to you repeatedly,” Martin said in an email. “Tim opposes any federal transfer or sale or ‘turning over’ of our public lands.”

While that may be Sheehy’s purported position now, he sang a very different tune shortly after launching his campaign. As HuffPost first reported in October, Sheehy told the “Working Ranch Radio Show” that “local control has to be returned, whether that means, you know, some of these public lands get turned over to state agencies, or even counties, or whether those decisions are made by a local landlord instead of by, you know, federal fiat a few thousand miles away.” Contacted about his comments at the time, Sheehy’s campaign tried to walk a splintering tightrope, telling HuffPost that “calling for better management and more local control is not the same as ‘transferring them.’”

Pressed about the conflicting and misleading messaging, Anderson said “it is hard to explain someone’s stance on a 30-second ad or even on someone’s website,” adding that public lands are a “complex issue that takes time to discuss the entire scope.” As for the language Sheehy recently added to his website, Anderson said “he might be saying that because he knows reporters will twist it and make it sound like he is transferring or selling off public lands to private entities.”

“If only we had honest journalism where the reporters cared about truth and the betterment of our lands, wildlife, environment and people,” he said.

The truth is that Sheehy said what he said early in his campaign, flipped his script and spent months working to repair his image, only to then dispatch someone who supports a state takeover of federal lands in hopes of convincing voters that federal lands would be safe in Sheehy’s hands if they elect him to the Senate.

In an email to HuffPost after publication, Anderson said he and Sheehy never discussed the nuances of each other’s position on land transfer.

“Tim and I don’t have to agree on everything but we do agree on way more than we disagree on,” he said. “And I disagree with Tester on way more than I agree with him. People are worried that if the lands were transferred to the states, they would be sold to private individuals or entities. Montanans including myself would never agree to that.”

A second surrogate

HuffPost also first reported that Sheehy failed to include his post on the board of the nonprofit Property and Environment Research Center, or PERC, in his Senate financial disclosure — a violation of Senate rules that further complicated his already muddled messaging on public lands. Sheehy’s campaign called it an “oversight” and later amended his financial disclosure.

For his second public lands ad, released last week, Sheehy tapped K.C. Walsh, with whom he served on PERC’s board for about a year before launching his campaign for Senate. Walsh is the longtime former president and executive chairman of Simms Fishing Products, the Bozeman, Montana-based manufacturer of high-end fishing gear.

In the ad, Walsh introduces himself as a longtime “advocate for conservation and public lands in Montana.”

“I voted for Jon Tester twice, but this time I’m supporting Tim Sheehy,” Walsh says. “As an aerial firefighter, Tim Sheehy’s been on the front lines, fighting wildfires to protect our forests in rural communities. Tim knows public lands belong in public hands, and I trust Tim Sheehy to protect and preserve access to Montana’s public lands.”

Founded in 1980 and based in Bozeman, PERC advocates for “free market environmentalism” — the idea that private property rights and market incentives achieve better environmental and conservation outcomes than government regulation. Over its history, PERC has called for privatizing federal lands, including national parks, and increasing fees for visiting parks and other federal lands. It has also been a staunch opponent of Montana’s unique stream access laws, which provide anglers and recreationists virtually unlimited access to the state’s rivers and streams, including those that flow through private property.

“Montana has led the way in the erosions of private property rights” via such laws, PERC’s Reed Watson wrote in 2009.

Bradley Jones, a Helena, Montana-based conservation advocate, told HuffPost “it is disingenuous of both Mr. Sheehy and Mr. Walsh to crow about Sheehy’s support for public lands when both of them come from PERC.”

“This is an organization that has made attacking public ownership of federal lands and support for the giveaway of public waters to the wealthy and landowners blessed enough to own prime real estate a cornerstone of their gospel; though they try to disguise it as academic musings on the economy,” he said. “By association with this group, Sheehy seems to be endorsing PERC’s ideology. Selling Montanans’ publicly owned lands and stream access, which are the only ‘riches’ most Montanans will inherit, is an extremely unpopular idea here.”

Along with serving on PERC’s board since 2020, Walsh is on the board of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and is a past board member of Trout Unlimited. In 2021, Montana GOP Gov. Greg Gianforte, who supports transferring control of federal lands to states and famously sued the state of Montana in 2009 to block river access on his property near Bozeman, appointed Walsh to serve on Montana’s Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission — a state regulatory advisory committee that Gianforte stacked with rich industry executives.

Walsh did not respond to HuffPost’s requests for comment.

PERC has distanced itself from some of its own history, previously telling HuffPost that its past support for privatizing federal lands “is not representative of PERC’s current thinking” and that it “firmly believes that public lands should stay in public hands.”

Still, Sheehy’s time at the think tank has become fodder for his political opponents. In a TV ad earlier this month, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee argued that pay-to-play hunting and fishing access is “Montana’s future if Sheehy has his way.”

“He was on the board of an outfit that wanted to privatize public lands, even our national parks, sold off to the highest bidder,” the ad states. “Sheehy’s loaded, he’ll take that deal. What about you?”

A familiar quagmire

As in previous Montana elections, public lands have emerged as a key issue in this year’s contested Senate race — in no small part because Sheehy stepped on the same third rail as Republicans before him.

Take outgoing Montana congressman and unsuccessful Senate candidate Matt Rosendale. While running for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2014, Rosendale called for a state takeover of all Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands within Montana’s borders. By the time Rosendale took aim at Tester’s seat in 2018, Montana voters had forced him to turn tail. During a candidate debate that year, Rosendale acknowledged that “there was a time when I thought they could be better managed by the state,” but said he “talked to people all over the state, and they’ve made it exceedingly clear that they do not want those lands transferred. And I not only understand that, I agree with that.”

Nevertheless, Sheehy waded into the same political quagmire. And in recent months, Montana voters have been bombarded with ads that paint Sheehy as a rich outsider who threatens Montana’s prized federal lands and the Montana way of life. A native of Minnesota, Sheehy moved to Montana in 2014 after retiring from the Navy and founded Bridger Aerospace, a Bozeman-based aerial firefighting company.

As Sheehy works to walk back, or camouflage, his anti-federal land views, the Montana Republican Party — a party he’s seeking a leadership role in — is unabashedly clear.

The Montana GOP party platform, adopted in June, calls for the “granting of federally managed public lands to the state, and development of a transition plan for the timely and orderly transfer.”

It’s a position that poll after poll after poll shows a majority of residents in Montana and other states in the Mountain West oppose, as Sheehy is now learning the hard way.

As he campaigns for a fourth term in the Senate, Tester has touted his record of working to safeguard and expand protections for federal lands while casting Sheehy as part of the wealthy class that is buying up big ranches and locking the public out of surrounding public lands.

“Despite his best efforts to hide his position, transplant Tim Sheehy can’t run away from the fact that he publicly called to transfer Montana’s public lands, which would make it much easier for that land to be sold to out-of-state multimillionaires like him,” said Hannah Rehm, senior communications adviser for the Montana Democratic Party.

Sheehy’s troubles in the public lands arena don’t end with his ties to PERC and his pro-transfer comments. His cattle ranch, the Little Belt Cattle Company, has offered the sort of pay-to-play hunting that Tester says is turning Montana into a “playground” for the rich.

As NBC News reported, Sheehy’s ranch contracted with a private outfitter — which one is unclear — to sell paid hunting excursions and touted itself as a “premier destination for hunters” with “private access to over 500,000 acres of National Forest.” In 2022, the ranch offered a five-day, five-person archery hunt costing $12,500, which the Montana Free Press at the time identified as “the most spendy package currently available in Montana.”

Anderson, the outfitter featured in Sheehy’s ad, did not respond to HuffPost’s question about whether he’s ever guided hunts on Sheehy’s property but told HuffPost that Sheehy “allows hunters to come on his place where the previous owners did not.”

Sheehy’s view of the federal estate aligns with many Republicans in red Western states where the federal government controls large swaths of land: simply, that federal agencies are crappy landlords and local residents know best.

“When you get asked by your fellow hunters and fly fishermen, ‘Oh, I hear Tim’s gonna sell public lands?’, you tell them, ‘Hey, that’s bullshit. He’s not selling any public lands, but what he is saying is us, as the Montanans who live here, when I share a fence line with a [Bureau of Land Management] lease, I should have more say over what happens on the other side of that fence than some guy in New York City who comes and visits to fly fish for a week,’” Sheehy said at a meet-and-greet with voters in Twin Bridges, Montana, last month. “When I have a Forest Service road that goes through my property, and I use that, and I have a lease on that Forest Service, I should have more say of what happens there than some, you know, environmental student in Seattle.”

It’s a way of thinking that casts aside the fact that federal public lands are held in trust for all Americans, not just those most adjacent to them or who have enough money to buy thousands of acres next door. Every American, whether they live 1,000 feet or 1,000 miles from a swath of federal land, has an equal stake.

At the end of the day, Marchion says, Republicans like Sheehy “don’t want to tell you exactly what they want to do” when it comes to public lands. What Sheehy is telling voters now, that he will protect and preserve federal public lands, is “devious” and “deceptive,” he said.

“He’s learned that when he’s attacked for a vulnerability, then he just changes,” Marchion said. “He makes a statement, like, ‘I’m for public lands!’ Bullshit he is.”

“To say ‘I’m for public lands,’ it’s easy to say that,” he added. “How do you prove it?”

This story has been updated with additional comments from Stryker Anderson.