BROWNING — Box fans whirred as dozens of people crowded into the Medicine Bear Lodge homeless shelter on a 100-degree day last July. 

“Hi Bum!” and “Hey Auntie!” were among the greetings people shouted into Director Marcedes Old Person’s office as they grabbed plates of meatloaf and green beans. 

Leaning on the doorframe of Old Person’s office, one man poked his head in to ask if he could stay for the night. Old Person, who’s on a first-name basis with nearly everyone who comes in, shook her head no. 

“I have to hire a night watchman,” she told him, dabbing her glistening forehead with a tissue.

“Really?” he interjected. “You got the room …”

Located on the Blackfeet Reservation in north-central Montana, the Medicine Bear Lodge can sleep 40 people — 20 men and 20 women. Despite its capacity, however, the shelter hasn’t been able to fully operate in more than a year due to a lack of money. 

“But whose fault is it?” Old Person asked in a recent interview with Montana Free Press. 

It’s the question at the center of broiling frustrations in the close-knit tribal community.

The Blackfeet Reservation is home to 10,309 people, 33% of whom live below the poverty level. Like in every tribal community across Montana, access to housing is limited, and federal funding for low-income housing doesn’t come close to meeting community needs. 

Shelter closures have plagued other tribal communities, too. Homeless shelters in Poplar and Wolf Point on the Fort Peck Reservation have struggled to stay open through the years. In the winter of 2019, community members built plywood huts to help keep people warm.

Once able to provide shelter for dozens of people, a lack of money has crippled Medicine Bear Lodge, effectively reducing it to a soup kitchen serving one hot meal a day. Community members for months have voiced frustration and urged investment in the shelter, saying people experiencing homelessness have nowhere to go. 

Medicine Bear Lodge needs several full-time employees to operate 24/7, including at least three male and three female resource aides — one for each shift. But the shelter’s $100,000 annual federal grant isn’t enough. Old Person said it covers supplies, food for the once-a-day meal and her salary. Blackfeet Manpower, a tribal workforce program, provides the shelter with two cooks. 

As Medicine Bear Lodge survives on a shoestring budget, Old Person said looming federal cuts could threaten its existence.

“It’s really sad,” she said. “It’s a community struggle.”

During a cold spell last January and February, Manpower supplied enough staff to keep the shelter open 24/7. But when the temperature rose, the shelter closed again, limiting its operations again to the daily hot meal. 

The shelter’s brief opening highlighted for many its vital role in the community. Marlee Wells worked at the shelter on behalf of Manpower at the time. She said she didn’t realize how badly the community needed Medicine Bear Lodge until she saw the many elders who relied on it. 

“I had an elder cry because he didn’t have a place to go,” she told Montana Free Press in March. “He asked me if I could talk to people to keep it open, and I told him I would try really hard.”

FUNDING CHALLENGES

The Medicine Bear Lodge opened in 1986 first as a soup kitchen and later as a place to house community members. It was established by Old Person’s father, Carl Cree Medicine, and Joe Bear.

Managing the shelter grew harder as the men grew older, and in 2012 the original building was condemned because of asbestos. The Blackfeet Tribal Business Council around that time designated a new building (its current location) for the shelter and hired Marcedes Old Person to get it running again. The tribe would provide funding for salaries to operate the shelter. 

Old Person, who worked in law enforcement for 40 years, came out of retirement to do the job. She was drawn to it because she’d been working with the houseless population all her life.

“The street people are my type of people,” she said in a July 2024 interview. 

When she first took over, Old Person said she crowdfunded about $8,000 for the shelter. She used the money for things like food and hygiene supplies. At the time, she said many tribal employees donated a portion of their paycheck to the fund. 

Old Person wanted Medicine Bear Lodge to be a place where people felt safe. Where they could wash up, clean their clothes and eat a good meal.

“That’s how you turn people’s lives around,” she said in July. “You make them feel worthy.”

But through the years, Old Person said, securing adequate funding has been difficult. The last time the shelter received money from the tribe for salaries was in 2022 when the tribe appropriated $60,000 to Medicine Bear Lodge, according to Old Person.

While the tribe initially oversaw the shelter, in 2022 oversight shifted to Blackfeet Manpower. People hoped the shelter would receive more personnel support and achieve stability under that program. 

Federal American Rescue Plan Act funds in 2021 and 2022 provided a big boost. The shelter used those federal dollars to hire staff and finish ongoing infrastructure projects, according to the director and a tribal official. Outfitted with two large trailers — one for men and one for women — the shelter could for the first time sleep 40 people. Each room had a bed, mattress, closet and desk. At the time, Old Person said the shelter employed six resident aides, two cooks, a resource officer and several security workers. 

“Everyone was pretty excited,” she recalled. 

But when the federal ARPA funds ran out about two years ago, Old Person said she had to lay off everyone on staff. Medicine Bear Lodge has not been fully operational since then. 

Manpower Acting Director Roberta Gordon told Montana Free Press this March the shelter “cannot operate” on the annual $100,000 federal grant alone.

“The impact, of the lack of funding, on the community is detrimental to those who are homeless,” she wrote.

Without a place to go, she said some people put their lives at risk by staying in unsafe, abandoned buildings. Others may seek shelter with family members whose homes are already full, which Gordon said “creates a hardship for all involved.” A 2018 Community Health Survey identified housing as a priority concern among Blackfeet Reservation residents. It also revealed that 32% of the nearly 500 people surveyed lived in overcrowded homes, meaning there were more than two people in a bedroom. 

As the Trump administration announces sweeping cuts to federal spending, Old Person said she worries every day whether the grant holding the shelter together will disappear. Those funds come from the Community Services Block Grant, a program within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that provides money to states, territories and tribes to assist low-income families and individuals. While the White  House has not yet sent a formal HHS budget to Congress, Politico reported that an April 10 proposal outlined sweeping cuts that would eliminate dozens of programs, including those focused on low-income Americans. 

“We’re all on edge about what he’s doing,” Old Person said of President Donald Trump. “We’re crossing our fingers and our toes but we live day by day.”

Old Person said Medicine Bear Lodge would need about $300,000 to be fully functional. If she was able to hire more employees and open the shelter, she said she can think of at least 20 people who would immediately benefit from having a place to stay.  

“I don’t know [the tribe’s] financial situation,” she said. “All I know is they don’t have the money to put into this program as of yet.”

Blackfeet Treasurer Lionel Kennerly did not respond to several requests for comment. 

In a March 18 Facebook post on the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council’s official page discussing the financial health of the tribe, Tribal Public Relations Officer Martina HeavyRunner wrote, “We are in uncertain times under the Trump administration.”

“We are scrutinizing spending and evaluating programs to ensure we have financial stability for the future,” the post reads. 

At 71, Old Person hopes to retire in a few years. She wants Medicine Bear Lodge to succeed but wonders who would want to take her place with so little financial support. She likes to say she’s “begged, borrowed and bummed” for every dollar the shelter has received through the years. 

“But what do you do?” she asked. “Where do you go when there’s no resources out there?”

The post With federal cuts looming, future of Blackfeet homeless shelter in limbo amid funding challenges appeared first on Montana Free Press.

Border Patrol agents arrested three foreign men in northern Montana in March, alleging their affiliations to the infamous Tren de Aragua gang. Prosecutors charged the men with being in the country illegally.

A month later, the criminal cases against two of the men have been dismissed, and defense attorneys say that they’ve seen no evidence that substantiates a claim of gang affiliation. But those allegations could still seal the fates of the two men, putting them at risk of being sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador. 

“I’ve seen nothing that suggests gang affiliation,” Jennifer Kaleczyc, a Helena defense attorney representing one of the men, told Montana Free Press. “There are no references to it in discovery. And I think it’s irresponsible for a government agency to put out a statement like that that puts people in danger.”

On March 4 in Shelby, U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested two Venezuelan men, Kledyber Gabriel Diaz-Rivas and Porfirio Alexander Suarez, as well as Carlos Alexis Ponce-Lopez of Honduras. All three were charged with entering the country illegally. They were found traveling with an American woman, Kristin Louise Mitchell, who authorities also arrested and accused of harboring the men in the country illegally.

The Havre Border Patrol office posted about the arrest on Facebook, alleging that Mitchell was smuggling the men. The post blurred out the face of Mitchell, a white American, but showed the faces of the other three men. A Border Patrol spokesperson told MTFP that “Mitchell’s face was blurred because she is a U.S. citizen and DHS [Department of Homeland Security] has privacy restrictions relative to that.”

On social media, the Border Patrol also alleged that the men “have been identified as Tren de Aragua gang members.” Multiple TV news outlets recited the agency’s Facebook post and its allegations of gang membership.

The Trump administration has used alleged membership of Tren de Aragua as the impetus to send hundreds of people to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act with little or no due process. The administration has admitted that one man had been sent to a prison there by mistake, and a New York Times investigation found that while some of the men had faced serious criminal accusations, many had no criminal background. Moreover, the investigation found little evidence to support the government’s accusations of gang affiliation for most of the 238 men already sent to the now notorious El Salvadorian prison.

Doug Keller has seen this happen to his clients. A former federal public defender who now defends migrants in Texas accused of state crimes, he described the criteria used for gang affiliation as “flimsy.” He said authorities accused one of his clients of gang membership based on a social media post in which he wore Nike clothing. The Times investigation noted federal government guidelines that included “high-end urban streetwear” and the Micheal Jordan Jumpman logo as gang indicators.

“This is just so truly shocking and outrageous,” Keller told MTFP. “Never in my lifetime I thought it would happen that based on some vague innuendo someone would be sent to another country.”

After reports of the initial arrest, the cases against Mitchell and three men in Shelby took an unexpected turn. Ponce-Lopez was charged with illegal reentry, a felony, meaning he was accused of coming back into the country after being deported previously at least once. But Suarez and Diaz-Rivas entered the country for the first time in 2023 and were charged with “improper entry by an alien” rather than reentry, according to court documents filed in U.S. District Court. That’s a misdemeanor.

Defense attorneys for the two men seized on the distinction and petitioned to have those cases dismissed. Keller said that someone charged with illegally entering the country at the southern border for the first time can’t be prosecuted months later in another state.

“With illegal entry, you have to charge them where they entered,” he told MTFP.

This is different from the charge of illegal reentry, which Keller said can be prosecuted anywhere a person is arrested.

Chief District Judge Brian Morris in Great Falls dismissed the cases against Suarez and Diaz-Rivas April 9. The judge’s order noted that the “venue for those offenses is not proper in the District of Montana” and that the prosecutor didn’t object to the motion.

The cases against Ponce-Lopez and Mitchell, however, remain ongoing. Because Ponce-Lopez allegedly reentered the country after being deported in the past, he faced a felony charge different from the other two men. A press release from U.S. Attorney Kurt Alme’s office April 11 announced not guilty pleas from both defendants, despite Ponce-Lopez having reached a plea agreement four days earlier. He is scheduled to formally plead guilty to illegal reentry on April 22. 

The three men are now scheduled to provide testimony in the case against Mitchell, who has pleaded not guilty to a charge of attempted harboring of illegal aliens. Court documents say that Mitchell has previous convictions for smuggling migrants.

So far, the Border Patrol’s Facebook post appears to be the only public mention of the men’s alleged ties to Tren de Aragua. Nothing in the court record for any of the three men mentions evidence of gang affiliation, nor do press releases about the case. The Border Patrol spokesperson declined to offer any details regarding gang affiliation and wouldn’t comment on what the agency called an active case. Told that two of the defendants’ cases had been dismissed, the spokesperson wrote in an email that “since the cases are all related, comment on a particular case would essentially be a comment on the active case.”

Defense attorney Kaleczyc said that the evidence turned over by federal prosecutors against her client does not mention gang affiliation.

“When I discussed it with [Porfirio Suarez], he was visibly shocked to hear that he was accused of being a gang member,” she said.

The defense attorney for Diaz-Rivas, the second man whose case was dismissed, confirmed to MTFP that he saw no evidence of gang affiliation in the case but declined to comment further.

A U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesperson declined to comment on the case.

Keller said that the lack of gang-related evidence isn’t unusual by itself, because the allegation wasn’t directly related to the charges of illegal entry. But Kaleczyc worries that even with the criminal case dismissed, the gang allegation might be used to imprison her client under the Alien Enemies Act.

Late last month, NPR highlighted a scoring system that the federal government has used to help determine whether someone can be deported under the Alien Enemies Act. Among the incriminating criteria in the checklist are “detailed open-source media (e.g. newspapers, investigative journalism reports) that describe arrest, prosecution, or operations of a subject as a member of TDA,” or Tren de Aragua. Kaleczyc wondered if some of the media’s stories, which relied solely on Border Patrol’s Facebook post, might lend credence to the claim.

“I am worried it’s a possibility,” Kaleczyc said.

On Wednesday, she wasn’t sure what would happen to her client. After being questioned in the case against Mitchell, Suarez is expected to be placed into the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The U.S. District Court of Montana has seen an uptick in immigration enforcement cases this year. Nearly all of them are being heard at the Great Falls federal courthouse, where seven such cases are pending.

One of those cases is against a Mexican man named Jose Carlos Ambrose-Chigo. Court documents say that Ambrose-Chigo had been ordered to remain in Mexico by U.S. authorities at one point, but his current charge is illegal entry — the same charge that a judge dismissed against Diaz-Rivas and Suarez.

But Ambrose-Chigo’s experience is different. In early April, he agreed to plead guilty and faces six months in prison for the charge. He’s set to be sentenced on April 22.

The post The Border Patrol agents in Montana called them gang members. Defense attorneys saw no evidence of that as a judge dismissed their cases appeared first on Montana Free Press.

” width=”224″ height=”168″ align=”right” hspace=”10″ alt=”High ground in Paradise above grazelands” title=”High ground in Paradise above grazelands” />In a win for environmental coalition, wildlife agencies ordered to review livestock grazing impacts on grizzly bears.

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Montana food banks are set to lose more than 300,000 pounds of food after significant cuts to a federal program that purchases healthy foods to distribute to those in need. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed earlier this week that it canceled $500 million in purchases for the Emergency Food Assistance Program, according to a press release from the Missoula Food Bank and Community Center. 

The Montana Food Bank Network, which distributes food to 330 partnering food banks and other organizations, will lose more than $400,000 worth of food, according to the organization’s Facebook page. 

The Missoula Food Bank will lose 91,000 pounds of food, or $180,000 in inventory, from the cuts, according to the organization. Last year, the food bank distributed 2.8 million pounds of food, including 228,290 pounds from the emergency assistance program. 

The federal program was initially set up to move nutritious food from farms to food banks, Amy Allison, the Missoula Food Bank’s executive director, told Montana Free Press. The food bank receives a variety of food through the program, including nuts, raisins, cheese and other dairy products, she said. 

“Unfortunately this will cause a reduction in the variety we [offer],” Allison said. “We think variety is very important because everyone’s diets should be diverse.” 

The reduction will also significantly impact the food bank’s budget, Allison said. The nonprofit will likely fundraise to try to make up that deficit, which will be “incredibly challenging” if additional federal funding is cut, she said. 

Government funding makes up about 21% of the organization’s budget and losing certain programs funded by federal money would be harmful for the community, Allison said. If money for the food bank’s federally funded Kids Table program, which provides free breakfast and lunch for children during the summer, is cut or reduced, it would have a significant impact on food security in the community, she said. 

Rising grocery prices and increasing financial strain are driving higher demand for food bank services, which Allison said is expected to continue. On multiple days this year, the food bank has served more than 400 families, Allison said.

“We’ve never seen numbers like that, especially on a regular basis,” she said. “With the high cost of living in our community and rising food costs, we’re concerned the demand is only going to increase, especially as layoffs occur and some safety net programs are threatened.”

Even if other federal food program funding isn’t cut, reductions to other social safety net programs will reduce people’s ability to stretch their dollar and increase demand for food banks, Allison said. Despite the situation, anyone in need of food should not hesitate to access the organization’s programs, she said. 

“I want to press the fact that we are still going to be here even when these cuts are made,” Allison said. “We are very strong, have the support of a very generous community and are not going anywhere. Our shelves are not bare, we stock several times per day and no one leaves empty-handed.” 

Allison encouraged those who are able to donate and advocate against cuts like these on the state and federal levels. Donations of food and money can be made at the food bank or online. More information, including how to volunteer, is available on the Missoula Food Bank’s website. 

While it’s unclear how significant the cut to the Emergency Food Assistance Program will be for the HRDC’s three food banks in Gallatin County, the organization is bracing for the change later this year, said Jill Holder, the nonprofit’s food and nutrition director.  

Food from the assistance program makes up about 5%, or 100,000 pounds, of the Gallatin Valley Food Bank’s inventory, Holder said. The program accounts for about 19% of the food distributed by the Headwaters Area Food Bank in Three Forks and Big Sky Community Food Bank, she said. 

“With the high cost of living in our community and rising food costs, we’re concerned the demand is only going to increase, especially as layoffs occur and some safety net programs are threatened.”

Amy Allison, the Missoula Food Bank’s executive director

It’s hard to know how much the reduction will affect the HRDC’s budget, but the organization will ultimately have to find any lost food from different sources, Holder said. 

“That’s where food drives and community involvement are so important to the survival of food banks,” she said. 

The HRDC is holding its annual Spring for Food Drive on Saturday with a goal of collecting 15,000 pounds of food, Holder said. Volunteers at grocery stores across Bozeman and Belgrade will distribute wishlists and collect donations of non-perishable items and hardy produce like carrots, potatoes and apples from shoppers from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Those interested can get volunteer information or make monetary donations online. 

Holder said the food drive, one of the organization’s biggest of the year, will help support the rising number of families relying on food assistance. The Gallatin Valley Food Bank in Bozeman is serving 1,900 to 2,000 households per month compared to the previous average of 1,400, Holder said. That increase is due in part to population growth as well as the rising cost of living, she said. 

The HRDC food banks have enough food and those who need help should come in, Holder said.  

“Sometimes you need help, and sometimes you can give help. That’s the whole spirit of community food banking,” she said. 

The post Montana food banks hit by cuts to federal assistance  appeared first on Montana Free Press.

Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte on Thursday signed two bills restricting transgender Montanans’ access to public bathrooms and locker rooms and participation on athletic teams, sparking legal action from civil rights advocates against one of the new laws slated to go into effect immediately. 

The news came from the governor’s office via a press release in the early afternoon and an accompanying video posted to the social media platform X. There, Gianforte said the legislation would help “safeguard fairness, privacy, and security” in sports and public places.

“Over the last few years we’ve seen far-left gender ideology sweep the nation,” Gianforte said. “But here in Montana we’ve stood up against this radical agenda and maintained equal opportunity for all Americans while also protecting women and girls.”

House Bill 121, which affects public bathrooms, locker rooms and sleeping areas, in addition to those residing at domestic violence shelters, was written to take effect immediately upon being signed into law. House Bill 300, pertaining to student athletes in K-12 and university settings, is not slated to take effect until Oct. 1. 

An attorney for the ACLU of Montana said the organization filed a lawsuit Thursday afternoon against HB 121 on behalf of transgender and intersex plaintiffs. The same-day lawsuit was prompted by the law’s immediate effective date, the attorney said.

“This is yet another attempt to demonize and marginalize transgender Montanans and we won’t stand by idly,” said Alex Rate, the organization’s legal director.

Both bills saw broad support from legislative Republican lawmakers, reflecting how the issue of strict gender roles has become a cornerstone of the state and national GOP in recent years.

Gianforte’s Thursday announcement was lauded by national groups including the Alliance Defending Freedom and Independent Women’s Voice, which has advocated for similar gender bills in other states. 

Throughout committee hearings and debates, backers of both bills consistently sidestepped opponents’ allegations they intended to restrict the lives and expression of transgender people. Rather, supporters described cisgender women feeling uncomfortable or threatened when in close proximity to transgender people in vulnerable spaces, such as locker rooms and dormitories. 

Supporters also described the hypothetical situation of predatory, cisgender men masquerading as women for the purpose of invading public spaces, an argument that Democratic lawmakers and transgender opponents panned as disingenuous and fearmongering.

“We have trans people in our communities. We have trans people who are employees, who are students. We have trans people who face abuse and come to the shelter,” said Rep. Zooey Zephyr, D-Missoula, the first openly transgender woman to serve in the Montana Legislature, during a January debate over HB 121. “‘This is not an issue’ is what was said again and again by the people impacted on the ground.”

The plaintiffs in the ACLU lawsuit include two state employees, a political intern for the Montana Democratic Party who works at the state Capitol building, and an accessibility coordinator at Helena College, a public university, all of whom are transgender or do not identify as either gender. Another plaintiff is intersex and, because of his biological characteristics, does not know whether HB 121 classifies him as “male” or “female.” 

The law creates a route for legal action against any public facility — including jails, schools and government buildings — or domestic violence shelter that do not take steps to ensure that multi-user bathrooms or locker rooms are sex-segregated based on chromosomes and reproductive biology.

In court filings, attorneys for the ACLU of Montana said the law presents plaintiffs with impossible choices about how to navigate public spaces where they work, as well as public parks and libraries. 

“Discomfort with or dislike of transgender people cloaked as a privacy or safety concern is not a legitimate basis for imposing unequal or stigmatizing treatment,” attorneys wrote in the brief for a temporary restraining order. 

Rate added that the ACLU of Montana did not have an immediate plan to challenge HB 300, the prohibition on athletic participation, though he said the latter bill “suffers from the same constitutional infirmities” as the bathroom ban.

Lawmakers from both parties this session questioned how HB 300 is legally distinct from prior bills that sought to restrict student sports participation. A bill from 2021 was struck down as it applied to colleges and universities after a judge found it infringed on the role of the Montana Board of Regents. Another bill that sought to institute strict definitions of “sex” across Montana law was found unconstitutional in February based on equal protection and privacy violations. 

Supporters pointed out that HB 300 amends a broader, preexisting section of law that prohibits discrimination in education. They also said the policy is in line with the federal government’s stance on interpreting gender discrimination, an analysis that has flipped between the administrations of former Democratic President Joe Biden and current Republican President Donald Trump. The NCAA has also recently changed its protocols for transgender athlete participation, under pressure from the Trump administration, requiring participation to be based on sex assigned at birth.

In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education told Montana Free Press that it is anticipating minimal issues with complying with both laws.

“A preliminary review of campus bathroom facilities shows that minimal effort will bring our campuses into compliance,” said Galen Hollenbaugh, deputy commissioner for government relations and communications. 

Regarding HB 300, Hollenbaugh said, the Montana Board of Regents policy requires the Montana University System to “comply with NCAA regulations.” 

“Following a presidential Executive Order, the NCAA has revised the relevant regulations regarding trans athletes, neutralizing any MUS compliance issues with HB 300,” Hollenbaugh said.

The post Gianforte signs bathroom, trans athlete restrictions into law appeared first on Montana Free Press.

The billions of dollars approved by Congress to clean up abandoned oil and gas wells have been frozen as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping cuts to government spending, creating concerns that the cleanup will be halted just as it’s getting started.

President Trump’s barrage of executive orders included a January directive called “Unleashing American Energy,” which, among other provisions, ordered that federal agencies stop distributing money appropriated by President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA).

The Trump administration titled this section of the order “Terminating the Green New Deal.” But in freezing this congressionally approved spending, the administration halted a program that paid for plugging and reclaiming so-called “orphaned” or abandoned oil and gas wells. The order stated that agencies should “immediately pause the disbursement of funds” from those two Biden laws. It set a 90-day deadline, upcoming in April, for agencies to review their spending programs and make sure that they align with the Trump administration’s goal of increasing U.S. energy production.

The orphaned well program, which was modeled on a North Dakota initiative, had been widely used by oil states, including several in the West.

The program — which set aside $4.7 billion, a historically large sum, for plugging wells — was distributed to states via grants from the Department of the Interior. In January, days before Trump took office, New Mexico announced that it would be receiving $5.5 million to clean up abandoned wells in the state. California also received a $9 million grant.

California, Colorado, Montana and New Mexico had each plugged over 100 orphaned wells using the Biden funds, according to an Interior Department report in 2024. Wyoming alone plugged 1,021 wells in just one year using federal grants.

As of last fall, the U.S. government had released over half a billion dollars in grants. Wells have been plugged in the people’s front yards, in national park areas and deep in the remote Alaskan wilderness. More than $3 billion are still left to be distributed, but previously available information about the grants appears to have been removed from the Interior Department’s website.

In response to questions from High Country News, an Interior Department spokesperson said that the grant program is “under review.”

“President Trump’s decisive actions are necessary steps to eliminate bureaucratic waste and refocus our agency on its core mission: serving the American people and managing our nation’s natural resources with integrity and efficiency,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “Orphaned wells negatively impact current and future oil and gas development activities and pose significant risk to national energy security and public safety.”

In addition to supporting jobs that address oil patch pollution, these federal dollars are used on wells that lack any owner to pay for reclamation. Left unplugged, such orphaned oil and gas wells leak huge amounts of methane into the atmosphere and can contaminate local water sources with salty water and benzene.

Now the future of that work is uncertain, in legal limbo alongside many of the Trump administration’s cost-cutting policies. The funding in question had already been appropriated by Congress, making it unclear that the Trump administration can indefinitely cancel it.

On March 20, more than 30 House Democrats sent a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, asking him to clear up the lingering confusion surrounding orphaned well funding and restart the grant program.

The funding “protects our communities, cleans up our environment, and builds our economy.”

“We have already begun to hear from IIJA funding recipients impacted by this pause who now face an uncertain future after DOI issued a stop work order on their orphaned well remediation projects,” the letter states.

The letter goes on to say that the Interior Department has issued no guidance on the funds’ status.

“We urge you to resume distribution of this Congressionally directed funding immediately,” the letter stated. “It protects our communities, cleans up our environment, and builds our economy.”

ORPHANED WELLS represent the final stage in what ProPublica recently described as the oil industry’s “ playbook”: When oil wells are no longer productive, large companies sell them off to smaller companies and thereby shed their obligation to plug those wells.

Oil industry profits don’t pay for cleanup

The increasingly marginal wells change hands, eventually landing with operators who lack the financial means to plug them. And when these companies go bankrupt, the wells become orphaned, meaning that the plugging costs then fall on American taxpayers.

The Biden administration’s infrastructure law was the first significant federal attempt to address the growing problem of orphaned wells across the United States, although the funding it provided paled in comparison to the scale of the problem.

The Interior Department estimates that there are about 157,000 documented orphaned oil and gas wells nationwide. This figure is likely a dramatic undercount: The Environmental Protection Agency stated in an April 2021 report that there could be as many as 3.4 million abandoned wells nationally.

“Undocumented orphaned wells may emit nearly 63 million grams of methane per hour into the atmosphere,” according to a November 2024 report, “the equivalent of over 3.6 million gasoline-powered passenger cars driven per year.”

Many state regulators are aware that their financial requirements for oil and gas operators are are aware of this pattern and struggle to prevent it.

Several state oil regulators stated this explicitly in a 2024 survey conducted by the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC), a quasi-governmental body that represents dozens of oil states. The documents were obtained via a records request by Fieldnotes, an industry watchdog, and shared with High Country News.

“Yes, this is the common life of a well,” regulators from Louisiana said, referring to the pattern of marginal wells being passed along to smaller companies.

Utah regulators agreed: “It is definitely a problem when wells are transferred to ‘poor’ operators.”

The plugging program was supposed to address these dysfunctional state programs, primarily by providing money. The Interior Department released its first round of grants in 2023, offering up $658 million to 26 states, including most of the oil states in the West.

The subsequent grants were intended to actually push states to fix their well-plugging programs and require that operators submit more money up front — enough to ensure that the industry and not the public ends up paying for the cost of plugging.

Known as regulatory improvement grants, these pools of funding required that states demonstrate higher financial assurance standards, increase scrutiny on well transfers, improve their plugging standards or show other reforms to their orphaned well regulatory regimes.

These grants essentially became the sole tool for the federal government to incentivize tougher state regulations. But the attempt immediately ran into headwinds: Oil states pushed back on these conditions. Some of this occurred via the IOGCC, which collaborated with the federal government on the rollout of the infrastructure law. This included initiatives to reduce orphaned well numbers, program implementation and data collection. Public documents show the inter-state commission lobbied to keep the federal guidelines as weak as possible. 

“Undocumented orphaned wells may emit nearly 63 million grams of methane per hour into the atmosphere.”

In a meeting of the Texas Railroad Commission in May 2022, Commissioner Wayne Christian – also an appointee to the IOGCC – said that he was working to remove the requirements from the federal grants.

“I’m part of the negotiation with IOGCC on the dollars coming down,” Christian said. “The Interior Department kind of have slowed things down, because all of a sudden, surprise, surprise, they decided they wanted to tell us how to do our work. And so we’re kind of fighting back on that.”

Interior devotes billions to plugging old oil wells. Is it enough?

Regulatory improvement grants would have made available an additional $40 million per state. Now the future of those grants and the improvement incentives are in jeopardy, though some groups are challenging the legality of Trump’s decision to freeze funds that had already been appropriated by Congress and passed into law.

Several environmental groups and many Democratic states have filed lawsuits against the Trump administration, seeking to release the unspent funds from the Infrastructure and Inflation Reduction acts, the Biden administration’s landmark spending bills.

“The Trump Administration has continued to block funds needed for our domestic energy security, transportation, and infrastructure provided under the IRA and IIJA,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta in a statement in February, after filing an injunction alongside 23 Democratic attorney generals, attempting to halt the administration’s funding cuts.

Bonta’s statement noted that the administration was blocking funding that “creates well-paying jobs while simultaneously reducing harmful pollution.”

The post Trump halts historic orphaned well-plugging program appeared first on High Country News.

The approximately 360 Montana-based federal Forest Service workers laid off in a blanket federal workforce reduction initiative may soon return to their positions.

The federal Merit Systems Protection Board on Wednesday directed the U.S. Department of Agriculture to temporarily reinstate the thousands of workers across the country who lost their USDA jobs last month after receiving generic emails stating that “based on [their] performance,” their continued employment “would not be in the public interest.” The board considers employment-related claims brought by federal workers to assess the legality of the government’s actions. 

The USDA is the largest federal employer in Montana and oversees the U.S. Forest Service, which manages more land in Montana than any other federal agency. Hundreds of Montanans lost their positions with the USFS in a sweeping round of layoffs implemented at the behest of a Department of Government Efficiency federal workforce reduction effort led by tech billionaire Elon Musk.

While many of the Forest Service workers laid off have multiple years of experience with the agency, they were considered “probationary employees” because they were just a year or two into their current position. Among other duties, the laid-off employees were charged with clearing trails, servicing campgrounds and rental cabins, responding to wildfires, controlling noxious weeds, supporting timber sales, restoring fisheries and studying archaeological sites.

Cathy Harris, chair of the Merit Systems Protection Board, issued the order in response to a claim filed on behalf of “John Doe,” a forestry technician who argued that he was terminated despite receiving a “fully successful” performance evaluation as recently as Jan. 15 and being given “only positive feedback” about his job performance.

The Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency that is itself in the Trump administration’s crosshairs, argued that the generic email Doe received was “identical to the mass termination letters” received by thousands of other probationary employees working for the USDA and other agencies. Between 5,700 and 6,000 employees received these emails, according to the OSC.

The USDA should contact laid-off federal workers within five days about a resumption of their employment, according to the Alden Law Group, a Washington, D.C.-based law firm representing the federal workers. The reinstatement restores the workers’ positions through April 18. During that period, Harris will consider whether the agency acted illegally by conducting the terminations without properly considering employees’ performance or going through “reductions in force” protocols for shrinking the federal government’s payroll.

Robert Arnold, a business representative with the National Federation of Federal Employees, a union representing Forest Service workers and other federal employees, cheered the order.

“All those people were fired unjustly, and it’s good that that’s apparent to some in positions of power,” he said. “We hope it sticks.”

Arnold added that he expected additional detail about the Forest Service’s plan to comply with the order in the coming days.

Harris’ order is nonprecedential, meaning MSPB and administrative judges are not required to consider it when weighing future claims.

In a statement about the order, OSC Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger thanked the board for issuing a stay on the firings. 

“Agencies are best positioned to determine the employees impacted by these mass terminations,” Dellinger said in the statement. “Voluntarily rescinding these hasty and apparently unlawful personnel actions is the right thing to do and avoids the unnecessary wasting of taxpayer dollars.”

USDA could not be immediately reached for comment on the order.

Nationwide, the workforce reduction is estimated to have resulted in approximately 10% of Forest Service employees losing their jobs, but some national forests were hit harder than others. Mary Erickson, who recently retired from her longtime post as supervisor of the Custer Gallatin National Forest, said approximately one-quarter of the forest’s non-wildfire staff lost their jobs in the “Valentine’s Day massacre.” Erickson criticized the focus on some of the agency’s most vulnerable employees, describing it as an attempt to “demonize and demoralize public servants.” 

“It makes me so frustrated when people act as if the Forest Service has never gone through budget cuts or changes. I think, ‘What do people think the Custer Gallatin combination was all about?’ That’s a 3 million acre national forest spread from West Yellowstone to Camp Crook, South Dakota,” Erickson said at a Feb. 25 event in Bozeman she organized to elevate workers’ stories and connect them with community support. “But this time is beyond anything I have ever seen or experienced.”

While wildland firefighters and other public safety personnel were officially exempted from the firing, an untold number of laid-off employees whose primary responsibilities lay in other arenas also served as “fire militia” to support local wildfire operations.

Allison Borges, a noxious weed specialist who was nine months into a permanent position on the Custer Gallatin National Forest when she was laid off, told MTFP Thursday afternoon that she has not yet received any outreach about being reinstated to her position. Borges said she’s reached out to her supervisor and was told that she, too, is awaiting guidance about complying with the order.

Borges said she’s uncertain if she should return to a job she loves and excels at or seek out employment that will offer more of the professional stability she’s long sought. Borges said she appreciates the outpouring of support from sympathetic community members but remains unsure how far that will take her and her colleagues.

“I know people are going to make their voices heard, they’re going to be present. But I’m also watching my agency crumble a little bit,” she said. “Things are happening so fast that by the time our collective voices are elevated to the sort of [administrators] that will help us make change, I don’t know if the agency will still be standing.”

The Montana Department of Labor and Industry on Feb. 28 announced that it has scheduled a “rapid response event” slated for March 12 to help terminated federal employees find new jobs and access workforce development resources. DLI Commissioner Sarah Swanson is encouraging those employees to apply for unemployment benefits and told MTFP that the department would evaluate claimants’ eligibility on a “case-by-case basis.”

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” width=”224″ height=”168″ align=”right” hspace=”10″ alt=”A packed Capitol rotunda in Helena, Montana, for the February 19 Rally for Public Lands” title=”A packed Capitol rotunda in Helena, Montana, for the February 19 Rally for Public Lands” />The U.S. Constitution gives citizens the right to “petition the government for a redress of grievances.” As a blizzard of public lands change sweeps out of Washington, D.C., activists around Greater Yellowstone ponder tactics to help them keep what they hold dear.

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” width=”224″ height=”168″ align=”right” hspace=”10″ alt=”The federal government employs as many as 10,000 wildland firefighters each year. With hiring freezes in place nationwide, fire season is in limbo” title=”The federal government employs as many as 10,000 wildland firefighters each year. With hiring freezes in place nationwide, fire season is in limbo” />Executive orders coming from the White House could transform a range of core issues affecting Greater Yellowstone. From Forest Service and BLM priorities to national park staffing cuts, public lands advocates must brace for a long season of conflict.

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