Earlier this year, public land ownership and use were big topics in the news. The issue divided many Montanans on how best to use and manage these lands. I’m an avid user of public lands and fully support keeping them open to the public, but I also want to shed some light on how they’re funded at the federal level. The federal government is obligated to pay local jurisdictions some form of property tax on the land it owns. There are complex formulas and programs used to calculate those payments, and each year Congress must appropriate the money in the...