Montana Democrats face an underfunded future

Montana Democrats face an underfunded future

At $273 million and counting, Montana’s just-ended 2024 U.S. Senate race is the state’s most expensive political race ever, and likely its last big-dollar federal election for the foreseeable future.

Federal election data shows that when once competitive “purple states” swing definitively to one political party, election investment by national party committees and political action committees flatlines. Montana has not elected a Democrat to statewide or federal office since Tester was elected to his third term in 2018. 

The U.S. Senate race between Republican Tim Sheehy, who Montanans elected Nov. 5, and three-term Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester cost at least $273.3 million in spending by the candidates and independent PAC expenditures on the race

Tester’s spending by late October totaled $81.8 million, by far the most ever by a federal candidate committee in Montana. Sheehy’s spending amounted to $22.2 million. Millions of dollars in candidate spending won’t be added to the ledger until early next year. 

“The parties direct donors to the competitive races, and outside groups target the seats/states that are the most competitive on paper, generally,” explained Kyle Kondik, of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. The center publishes Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a free weekly newsletter analyzing American politics. “Montana’s Senate seats no longer qualify — they are both held by Republicans and Montana has become a reliably Republican state at both the federal and statewide levels.”

Kondik said there may be times in the future when the state’s western U.S. House district could be competitive in a good year for Democrats. But the big-money Senate races are likely over for some time.

Federal election data shows how quickly outside congressional race money dries up for parties out of power. This year’s U.S. Senate race in North Dakota between Republican U.S. Sen. Kevin Cramer and Democrat Katrina Christiansen drew no serious PAC support for Christiansen after PACs and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spent $10 million on Democrat Heidi Heitkamp’s unsuccessful reelection bid in 2018. 

Cramer flipped the seat in 2018 by defeating Heitkamp. Thirty-three political committees spent money in the race.

This time out, the DSCC spent nothing on Christiansen. One PAC, Givegreen United Action, spent $6.66.

PAC funding ran to $126 million in Missouri in 2018. Claire McCaskill, part of the freshman class including Tester that flipped the Senate blue in 2006, was defending a Senate seat against Republican challenger Josh Hawley. Hawley defeated McCaskill in 2018, and easily won reelection last week as Democratic PACs and the party’s senatorial committee mostly stayed away. One PAC spent $379,165 opposing Hawley. No committee spent money supporting Democrat Lucas Kunce, who received 41.8% of the vote.

Republican Party committees and PACs also don’t stick around for races considered noncompetitive. In Rhode Island and Virginia, where Democrats flipped Senate seats in 2006 and continue to hold both, outside spending for Republicans has dried up. 

In Montana, “I think the western congressional district, the 1st congressional district, has the best chance going forward … where there might be outside money,” said Jeremy Johnson, head of the political science department at Carroll College in Helena. “But in the statewide races, Montana is not going to get that outside money unless the national Democratic Party sees proof that the Democratic candidate can compete.

“I think it’s going to have to be very grassroots-oriented, going back to the old ways of campaigning and to try to convince voters, that is literally meeting voters, community-based, and having to work on the street, because you’re not going to get the big money any more.”

The lack of funding for federal campaigns is something Montana Democrats have already dealt with, said Robyn Driscoll, who chairs the Montana Democratic Party. In 2022, without a Senate race on the ballot, there weren’t resources to get out the vote like there were this year, when registering new voters and door-to-door canvassing amounted to a multimillion-dollar effort, as revealed in federal campaign finance reports for Tester and supporting PACs.

As previously reported by Montana Free Press, Native American turnout in Montana in 2022 slumped to a 20-year low without Democrats driving turnout for a statewide candidate. Glacier County, where the Blackfeet Reservation is located, turned out just 26% of its vote in the 2022 general election. This year, with more than $1 million spent turning out the Indigenous vote statewide, Glacier County’s turnout was 61.3%, state data shows. 

Democrats are focusing more on local candidates, Driscoll said. The party has a “blue bench” coordinator to work with local government candidates. Local races have received more attention for about the past six years. The party’s executive director, Sheila Hogan, has been traveling to rural towns. It isn’t clear what’s been gained, but that’s the hard work, Driscoll said. 

“I haven’t really looked at the pickups, but it’s still laying the groundwork,” Driscoll said. “And, if the party in the future keeps it up, and keeps visiting these areas, that lays the groundwork. You’ve got to go where it’s hard. You don’t get to just sit in your bubble where you know you will have support in these safe areas.” 

U.S. Senate races have defined the political power struggle in Montana for the last 24 years, starting with the 2000 race between then U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns and Democrat Brian Schweitzer. Burns won, but Schweitzer, a newcomer, picked up 47.2% of the vote, suggesting that maybe Burns, despite having six years earlier become Montana’s first Republican to win a second Senate term, was vulnerable. 

Schweitzer snapped Republicans’ 16-year hold on the governor’s office in 2004, while Burns lost to Tester in a nail-biter, 48% to 49%, with Libertarian Stan Jones making up the difference. Thirty-nine political action committees spent money in that Senate race, more than Montana had previously experienced. The PACs favored Tester. The $19 million spent on the election was a Montana record. 

Democrats were surging, in part because they were appealing to voters in rural areas, where even their losses weren’t blowouts, as they are now. Schweitzer won 49 of Montana’s 56 counties and was reelected in 2008, Barack Obama campaigned in Montana, winning 47.3% of the vote, the largest share for a Democratic presidential candidate since Michael Dukakis in 1988. Republicans failed to produce viable candidates for U.S. Senate and governor.

Up for reelection in 2012, Tester drew a challenge from Denny Rehberg, who had a decade of comfortable wins behind him as Montana’s at-large U.S. representative. Tester won 49% of the vote to Rehberg’s 45%. Spending on that race ratcheted up to $48 million. The Supreme Court had ruled two years earlier in Citizens United that campaign spending constitutes free speech and can’t be legally limited. Super PACs funded by corporate donors spent  millions. The next time out, in 2018, expenditures hit $69.3 million. Tester won 50.3% of the vote, the high-water vote share among his Senate elections and the last time Democrats won a statewide election in Montana. 

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What’s next in Montana’s 2024 election process?

Voters have heard all about the winners of the 2024 election. But for county election offices, the weeks-long process of double checking their work has just begun, and only when the state certifies everything will the results of Election Day be official.


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How Montana ballots become election results

How Montana ballots become election results

As of Sunday Nov. 3, more than 395,00 Montana voters had submitted their ballots for the 2024 general election, according to the secretary of state. Others spent portions of their Monday casting their votes early at county election offices using a one-time absentee option. Even more will flock to the polls Tuesday to stand at a booth and fill in the bubbles next to their candidates of choice.

How exactly do all those paper ballots transform into the official results flashed on television and computer screens come election night? The answer to that question is what keeps local election workers busy well ahead of Election Day, and well past it. It’s also something that has generated  intense interest and, at times, skepticism among voters across the state.

At MTFP, where we’ve been covering election procedures for years, we spoke with local election officials in Missoula, Gallatin and Lewis and Clark counties to help readers better understand how votes are being counted this week.

In the case of absentee ballots submitted via mail and in person, the count is already underway in many parts of the state. Montana election law allows counties with more than 8,000 registered voters or more than 5,000 absentee voters to process absentee ballots three business days ahead of an election and to begin counting those ballots the Monday before Election Day. That work starts with county staff and volunteers sorting ballots based on the mix of district- and precinct-specific races listed on them, then marking ballots as “received” in the state’s election system. 

From there, the signature on each absentee ballot envelope is verified against past examples of a voter’s signature in the state system. Any discrepancies are reviewed by multiple election workers, and, if a signature is missing or rejected, the county attempts to contact the voter directly to resolve the issue. Once a signature is accepted, the secrecy envelope containing the ballot is removed from the signature envelope. The ballot itself is later removed from the deidentified secrecy envelope, flattened out and kept secure alongside the other ballots in its batch until they’re sent to an electronic tabulating machine for vote counting. Each of those steps is recorded on a sheet that accompanies each bundle of ballots through the entire process.

A similar process will be applied tomorrow across Montana to ballots cast at the polls, where voters will deposit their completed ballots in collection boxes. The number of ballots collected in those boxes will be recorded throughout the day, and, once the polls close at 8 p.m., election workers will verify the totals. In many counties, the collection boxes will then be transported from polling locations to a centralized tabulating center under the watch of two election judges. The boxes are accompanied by corresponding pollbooks, which contain the recorded signatures of every voter who cast a ballot at that particular polling place on Election Day.

After polls close at 8 p.m., election workers will begin to put the ballots through the same electronic tabulating machines used to process absentee ballots. The machines themselves — manufactured by Nevada-based ES&S, Montana’s sole certified provider of election equipment — are required by law to be publicly tested for accuracy in the weeks before the election. Batches of voted ballots will be sent through the machines, with the number of processed ballots once more checked and verified. If a machine can’t process a ballot for some reason, perhaps because the voter filled in too many bubbles for a single race or used an ink color the tabulator can’t read, the ballot is flagged and sent to a bipartisan panel of election judges to make sure the voter’s intent is accurately reflected in the night’s final tallies.

Election workers will pull vote totals from each machine throughout the night using a special ES&S-supplied thumb drive and upload them to a secure computer isolated from the internet. Countywide results will be pulled in turn from that computer and uploaded through a separate computer to the secretary of state’s election system. 

Voters will see those results reflected in updates to Montana’s online election dashboard. At the same time, poll-watchers and journalists at election offices across the state will be handed printed copies of local results, data that can sometimes let news outlets like the Associated Press report results faster than they appear on the official state dashboard.

The Associated Press also produces race call predictions based on current returns and historical results. In some cases, those race calls are issued before a majority of ballots involving a race are counted based on the agency’s ability to predict the likely political breakdown of a district’s voters.   

Despite a wave of skepticism among some conservatives in recent years, Montana’s ballot counting process has been routinely described as fair, accurate and secure by state and local officials of all political stripes. State law has numerous long-established safeguards as well, allowing political parties to recruit poll watchers to monitor local Election Day procedures and requiring randomized post-election audits and county canvasses to double check and certify the results.

Organizations such as the nonprofit Carter Center have also launched independent observation initiatives this year to report on the security and efficacy of Montana’s practices. And, as added insurance, once the secretary of state has proclaimed the results of the 2024 general election official, Montana law requires county election officials to seal and lock away every single ballot for a minimum of 22 months so they’re available to reference in any recounts, challenges or appeals.

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How Montana ballots become election results

Montana’s voting procedures have been the subject of curiosity and even criticism in recent years. So what does happen to a ballot once it’s filled out, and how do the bubbles inked in by voters turn into election night results? We explain.


Are you Team Dressing or Team Stuffing?

The very best dressing needs to combine the right bread, evocative aromatics, plenty of fall-leaning herbs, some fat for flavor, a bit of texture, and a pop of sweetness. That is how I developed this “Intermediate Chef Dressing,” which has become standard fare for every holiday menu I craft.


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Training nonpartisan eyes on Montana’s 2024 election

Training nonpartisan eyes on Montana’s 2024 election

Security footage of a man touching a ballot drop box in Browning sparked a brief viral firestorm last week, with Republican Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen claiming in a statement delivered by her 2024 reelection campaign that the video showed “undeniable” evidence of election tampering by a political operative.

“The actions captured on camera reveal how desperate Democrats have become in Montana,” Jacobsen’s statement read, referring to assertions the man was a Democratic party staffer. “Tampering with ballot boxes is a criminal offense, and those responsible will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Jacobsen’s allegation of tampering echoed the language used by Glacier County Election Administrator Crystal Cole in an Oct. 21 email alerting Jacobsen’s office of the incident, and the framing quickly made it into headlines from conservative-leaning media outlets including Fox News. Glacier County officials later dismissed the claims as unsubstantiated, noting that the person in the footage — a former employee of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee — was questioned by the Glacier County Sheriff’s Office and released without any criminal charges. 

Glacier County Attorney Terryl Matt did not respond to emails from Montana Free Press but told KRTV Great Falls last week, “The behavior captured in the video does not constitute a legitimate attempt to tamper with the ballot box or the electoral process.” The DSCC also did not respond to an MTFP email seeking comment.

The rhetoric inspired by the episode was evocative of a broader trend in Montana elections in recent years, one characterized by heightened skepticism about the security of the infrastructure and systems used to conduct those elections. Concerned citizens have filed reams of public records requests with local election offices, leveled allegations of misconduct on the part of county election officials, and at times taken it upon themselves to watchdog allegedly suspicious activity. For Geraldine Custer, a former Republican state lawmaker and 36-year veteran of the Rosebud County elections office, growing public distrust in the electoral process raised a personal fear that some Montanans may stop participating.

“I just felt like people were going to not vote,” Custer told MTFP. “They weren’t going to trust the system. They were going to think, ‘Why bother?’”

Custer is one of a handful of former state and local officials who have put their concern about flagging faith in Montana elections into action this year, partnering with the Georgia-based nonprofit Carter Center and the University of Montana’s Mansfield Center to impartially observe the state’s Nov. 5 election. Dubbed the Montana Election Observation Initiative, the group has spent the past few months recruiting and training 175 volunteers across 15 counties tasked with monitoring various local election procedures. According to coordinator Daniel Bruce, the initiative will encompass Montana’s five largest municipalities and a sampling of smaller, rural counties.

“Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen a lot of positive traction and engagement,” Bruce told MTFP recently. “We’re still looking to add a few people here and there in each of those rural communities to just boost that level of coverage … But overall, we’re in a really good spot and we’re really excited by the level of engagement and excitement we’ve seen from the communities.”

The Carter Center spearheaded a similar initiative in Georgia during the 2022 midterm election, and is conducting observation efforts alongside local leaders in New Mexico this year as well.

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Bruce added that volunteers will act as nonpartisan observers of local Election Day operations, working off a checklist that sequentially follows the steps outlined in state law for processing ballots and tabulating votes. The observers’ collective observations will then be used to generate a post-election report of the initiative’s findings, including a narrative of each stage in the process and notes about any significant concerns or observed departures from established procedure. Bruce added that volunteers will be held to a strict code of conduct emphasizing professionalism and non-interference with the operations they’re observing, and have been instructed to prioritize their own safety and step away if any situations at poll locations and election offices become threatening.

Initiative leaders followed the same model during a pilot observation of the June primary in Missoula County, which reported no systematic concerns or incidents of disruption and concluded the election was “well-organized, peaceful, orderly,” and conducted in line with state laws and guidelines.

Separately from the Carter Center-led Montana Election Observation Initiative, two international election observers arrived in Montana early this month as part of a nationwide monitoring effort by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe [OSCE]. The organization — made up of 57 member countries including the United States — has conducted more than 430 election observation efforts across the globe as part of its mission to promote free and fair elections. This year marks the 11th time in the past two decades that OSCE has conducted such a mission in a U.S. election at the invitation of the federal government.

The two OSCE monitors tasked to Montana and Wyoming are among a team of 64 monitors spread across the Lower 48 states collecting not just technical information about America’s election procedures but insights on voter rights, the sociopolitical environment surrounding federal campaigns, and the challenges faced by reporters covering federal elections. In a May 2024 needs assessment recommending this year’s general election monitoring mission, OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights noted the potential importance of international observation “given the highly polarized environment and the discourse sowing distrust in the integrity of elections.”

The assessment also concluded that most issues identified in past OSCE observation missions in the U.S. remain “unaddressed,” and that only some of the organization’s recommendations have been implemented. An interim report on the 2024 general election released last week said early monitoring work indicated “a highly contested electoral environment, with a high expectation for widespread post-election litigation.” The OSCE plans to release its preliminary findings and conclusions at a press conference in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 6.

Whether Election Day insights from firsthand observers are enough to improve faith in the integrity of Montana’s elections, which Secretary of State Jacobsen has repeatedly called a “gold standard,” it appears unlikely that politicization of election administration will vanish overnight. Bruce said the Montana Election Observation Initiative has intentionally kept its focus on administration and legal process in a tacit acknowledgment that it’s “not easy to talk about elections without talking about politics.” Initiative leaders recognize the volunteers they’ve trained have their own political beliefs, Bruce added, but the hope is that the collective commitment of a diverse group to an attitude of impartiality can serve as a message in its own right. 

“I think people are eager to participate in activities and in dialog that allows them to put aside some of the partisan elements that tend to divide us,” Bruce said.

Former Montana Commissioner of Political Practices Jeff Mangan, who is co-chairing the initiative alongside Custer, believes there’s positive momentum in simply shining light on the electoral process. Election officials in some counties have already taken similar steps, he said, and have increasingly engaged in conversations about their work in a bid for transparency and trust.

“I don’t know how we get there, but there needs to be a more connected effort from county to county, official to official, talking about these things and avoiding politics,” Mangan said of questions and concerns about election procedures. “I don’t know if that’s possible, but it only gets talked about, unfortunately, when something political happens.”

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The future of coal country: Money, power, politics, and tradition

The future of coal country: Money, power, politics, and tradition

The rise of renewable energy sources poses life-changing questions for Montana’s coal country. The town of Colstrip has a century’s dependence on coal production. The Crow and Northern Cheyenne Indian reservations also share the region’s Powder River Basin coal deposits. But those three communities face different directions as the energy economy reacts to billions of dollars in new federal investments for wind and solar generating projects, mine and pollution cleanup, job training and economic development. Around the world, coal ranks worst among energy sources for producing greenhouse gases that lead to disrupted rain and snow patterns, longer wildfire seasons and other impacts from global warming.

Part II of this four-part series, today, catalogs the unprecedented flood of tax dollars flowing into Montana’s coal country, and the reactions of residents presented with these opportunities in an election year. Billions of dollars in tax incentives, loan guarantees and direct aid to families await takers, but many in southeast Montana feel leery of the complicated processes.

Like a squadron of benevolent B-52s loaded with money, federal opportunities are circling above Montana’s coal country looking for places to land.

“It absolutely is bewildering,” said Clair Scribner of the Bonneville Environmental Foundation. “Tribes are being inundated with opportunities.”

Scribner toured Montana this summer with K.C. Becker of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to publicize Solar For All, which plans to spend $44 million in Montana to help tribal and rural communities get rooftop solar panels to lower their electricity bills.

“This is part of the biggest investment ever in renewable energy,” Becker added. “All together, there’s $7 billion focused on low-income and disadvantaged communities.”

That’s an understatement. Solar For All is one of the more human-scaled of the initiatives tumbling out of the Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and related congressional legislation. The $7 billion Becker mentioned is just an EPA slice of the renewable energy pie. The Tribal Energy Loan Guarantee Program through the Department of Energy has $20 billion on hand to fund solar and wind generation, as well as mining and fossil energy production. 

In between lie billions more for mine waste cleanup, job training, loan financing, tax credits, climate resilience and education programs. Put together, more than a trillion tax dollars are flying around the nation’s energy sector.

The money comes just as Montana’s coal mining base around Colstrip dreads the loss of a fossil-fuel energy industry that’s underpinned its way of life for half a century. As recently as 2001, coal supplied more than half of the nation’s electricity.

The International Energy Agency World Energy Outlook 2024 released in October shows forecasts for United States coal demand nearly evaporating by 2035. Credit: International Energy Agency

Nationwide, coal-sourced energy reached its peak capacity of 318 gigawatts in 2011. It’s since been on an unbroken downward trend, losing half that in 15 years. In 2023, coal was producing about 80 gigawatts for the Lower 48 states.

About 600 people work at Colstrip’s mines and generating station. The Rosebud mines west of town dug 6 million tons of subbituminous coal in 2023. They once produced more than 12 million tons a year. Colstrip Units 3 and 4 consumed around 222 railroad carloads of coal a day to generate 1.4 gigawatts of electricity.

Rectangular coal cars and cylindrical oil tankers rumble through Billings, carrying the state’s energy resources to utility clients on the West Coast. A coal railcar carries an average $14,000 worth of fuel, in trains more than 115 cars long. Credit: Ben Allan Smith / Missoulian

Colstrip Units 1 and 2 used to contribute another 614 megawatts. They went dark in 2020, two years ahead of schedule, after their owners concluded they couldn’t operate cost-effectively due to aging equipment and pollution control upgrade costs.

What didn’t get burned there got put on railroad trains to Oregon and Washington. Each car carried on average $14,000 worth of fuel, in trains more than 115 cars long.

Twenty miles west, the Absaloka coal mine used to dig 6 million tons of coal a year from deposits owned by the Crow Indian Tribe just outside its 2.2-million-acre reservation. When it stopped production last April, owner Westmoreland Resources was only digging 1 million tons annually as its primary customer switched its generating plant to methane gas.

Sandwiched in the middle lies the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation. It has no operating coal mines or generating stations on its 440,000 acres. But one in five of its residents work in the mines and power plant at Colstrip. And all of them live about 14 miles from Colstrip’s 800-acre coal ash waste ponds.

Those ponds have been leaking into the underground water table, losing as much as 368 gallons a minute contaminated with sulfates, boron, selenium and other heavy metals known to cause cancer and other health issues, according to Montana Department of Environmental Quality estimates.

Colstrip’s 800-acre coal ash waste ponds have been leaking into the underground water table, losing as much as 43,000 gallons a day contaminated with sulfates, boron, selenium and other heavy metals known to cause cancer and other health issues, according to Montana Department of Environmental Quality estimates. Credit: Ben Allan Smith / Missoulian

Colstrip residents don’t drink from their underground aquifer — municipal water is piped in from the Yellowstone River. But most residents of the Northern Cheyenne Reservation depend on groundwater wells.

This fall, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to block new Biden administration rules requiring tougher pollution standards on coal smokestacks. The rules are anticipated to push the United States’ 200-odd remaining coal-fired power plants out of economic feasibility.

Much of that slide is driven by economic headwinds: Methane gas, wind and solar generators cost less and provide as much power as coal plants. On top of that, burning coal contributes the largest share of greenhouse gas pollution to the atmosphere, resulting in climactic problems ranging from extended droughts and wildfire seasons to intensified hurricanes.

Both the economics and climate concerns have hit Montana coal country like locusts on a wheat field. Yet despite the boom-and-bust history of coal jobs, residents atop the Powder River Basin coal deposits aren’t sprinting toward a renewable energy future. That could be because no one knows what that would look like.

Competition for the Indian vote brought both Democratic incumbent Sen. Jon Tester and Republican challenger Tim Sheehy to the annual Crow Fair gathering near Crow Agency this summer. Tester touted his efforts negotiating the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which have made so much money available to the region. Sheehy pledged support for Indian Country, but undermined his claims when audio surfaced of him telling a fundraising gathering that roping calves on the Crow Reservation was “a great way to bond with Indians when they’re drunk at 8 a.m.”

That drew a rebuke from Crow Tribal Chairman Frank White Clay, who issued a public letter stating, “Tim Sheehy’s racial remarks about the Crow Tribe and Indian Country are deeply troubling and unacceptable.”

Nevertheless, White Clay and the Crow Tribe have worked closely with Republican Sen. Steve Daines on a deal to expand accessible coal fields to a mine outside the reservation. Daines has spent years developing relations with the Crow with campaign slogans such as “a war on coal is a war on Indian families.”

Sen. Jon Tester supporters campaign in the 105th Annual Crow Fair Parade. Native Americans make up about 7% of Montana’s population, the only statistically significant minority demographic bloc in a predominantly White state. Credit: Larry Mayer / Billings Gazette

Known as the “Crow Revenue Act,” Daines’ S.4444 bill in Congress would swap the mineral rights to 4,660 acres inside the Crow Reservation owned by the Hope family (who are not tribal members) for 4,530 acres of federal mineral rights near the Signal Peak coal mine, 80 miles to the northwest.

Signal Peak has struggled to get access to new federal coal leases. The Daines mineral swap would turn accessible federal coal private, allowing Signal Peak to avoid federal oversight of its acquisition. It would pay royalties to the Hope family, which would share some of the revenue with the Crow Tribe if the coal is developed.

Daines spokesperson Rachel Dumke said the revenue-sharing agreement is not public, but does require the Crow Tribe and Hope family to agree on a formula for sharing the royalties.

Opponents of the deal on the Crow Reservation called that arrangement “outrageous.” The Apsåalooké Allottees Alliance wrote, “There is no justification for gratuitously enriching the Hope Family Trust at the expense of the United States, in return for the Tribe receiving mineral rights of little value.”

Signal Peak has been further encumbered by criminal investigations about its environmental management, including a legal complaint filed last October alleging its underground mine is creating subsidence cracks in the pastures of adjacent ranches. The New York Times further reported on the company’s legacy of “embezzlement, a fake kidnapping, bribery, cocaine trafficking, firearms violations, past links to Vladimir Putin, and worker safety and environmental violations by the mine and its owners.”

The swarm of opportunities may tangle its own progress. For example, the Solar For All program offers to install photovoltaic panels on the roofs of anyone in the target area who requests a set. The goal is to lower each homeowner’s power bill by at least 20%.

Individual solar arrays are great in isolated places where utility-scale power is either hard to get or expensive. But even though their price has fallen greatly in the past decade, the small-scale set-ups cost more per kilowatt than a larger-scale solar farm serving a whole community. A 2023 study in the United Kingdom found large-scale photovoltaic farms produced electricity at about one-third the cost of domestic systems.

That results in confusion when communities face dueling proposals. Why would a private power developer invest in a community-scale solar farm if all the potential customers already had photovoltaic cells on their rooftops? Conversely, why would homeowners take on the hassle and structural upgrades needed to add those cells to their roofs if they could get the same power with just a wire connection to the big farm?

Basin Electric Power Cooperative in Montana has already been selected to receive a grant to develop more than 1,400 megawatts of new electric production in Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota. That’s part of a $7.3 billion fund called Empowering Rural America. It would replicate the nameplate generating capacity of Colstrip’s coal-fired plant, if it doesn’t get derailed by the small-ball Solar for All.

The MTSUN solar farm north of Billings produces 80 megawatts of electricity on its nearly 500 acres of former farmland. Regionally, the solar and wind farms in the four-state network surrounding Colstrip produce the same amount of electricity as the coal-fired plant does. Credit: Ben Allan Smith / Missoulian

Wind power faces different challenges. Numerous wind farm proposals in Montana have failed because NorthWestern Energy has resisted allowing them to use its electricity transmission lines. But the Biden administration has targeted electrical grid modernization as a core part of its initiative. And that could push wind to an entirely new position in the nation’s energy portfolio.

“The biggest obstacle we have in this state is transmission capacity,” said Anne Hedges of the Montana Environmental Information Center. “We haven’t upgraded the transmission system for decades.”

The $3.2 billion North Plains Connector project would allow electricity generated in the western states  to reach the energy markets of the Midwest. But it would also connect a link in wind power that’s been missing.

“North Dakota has a different wind profile than Montana wind or the Columbia Gorge winds of Washington,” Hedges said. “If you line up all those areas, you get power all day. That’s why Portland General Electric is investing in this line. It could access a whole new market for clean energy.”

Then there’s the debate over holding to the past or reaching for the future.

NorthWestern Energy CEO Brian Bird has proposed letting Montana’s monopoly public utility acquire most of Colstrip’s generating capacity now owned by out-of-state utilities. It would fold that back into the portfolio of electrical energy it sells to its 400,000 Montana customers — and keep Colstrip a viable generating facility for years.

ABOUT THIS SERIES

Part I of this four-part series takes readers across the landscape shared by the Northern Cheyenne, Crow and Colstrip residents who live above the United States’ largest coal reserve, and lays out the challenges and uncertainties entangled in envisioning a new energy economy.

Part II catalogs the unprecedented flood of tax dollars flowing into Montana’s coal country, and the reactions of residents presented with these opportunities in an election year. Billions of dollars in tax incentives, loan guarantees and direct aid to families await takers, but many in southeast Montana feel leery of the complicated processes.

Part III, publishing Oct. 23, explores the distinctive cultures and aspirations of the Crow, Colstrip and Northern Cheyenne communities as waves of change buffet traditional coal jobs and introduce new but untested opportunities to join a renewable energy transition.

Part IV, publishing Oct. 24, presents a visual tour of Montana’s coal country and the people and places that have grown up around it. 

Opponents questioned that plan before the Montana Public Service Commission. In his testimony, Grid Strategies Vice President Michael Goggin reported that NorthWestern has enough new generating resources applying to connect with its power system “to meet any capacity need created by Colstrip’s retirement 22 times over, indicating NorthWestern could replace Colstrip if it agrees to purchase the output of less than 5% of these projects.”

The plant also faces what operator Talen Energy estimates are between $320 million and $600 million in upgrade costs to meet new federal Mercury and Air Toxics Standards — the EPA rules the Supreme Court upheld in September.

Yet while Colstrip’s traditional energy partners move toward greener energy sources, the burgeoning rise of electricity-hungry data centers has roiled the coal industry. Companies including Google and Meta have revived failing or dormant coal generating plants in Georgia, Utah, Wisconsin and Nebraska. Data centers are predicted to consume up to 17% of all electricity production in the United States by 2030, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.

Were coal to fade away, Colstrip’s coal ash ponds and mine fields could become a part of Montana’s restoration economy, with an estimated 10 years of cleanup work waiting to be done. Erasing a coal mine requires most of the same skills and equipment as building one, meaning the workers who’ve built their lives around the Powder River Basin could find their talents still in demand. The mine owners have cleanup bonds in place to fund the work, and the federal incentives include millions more for mine reclamation.

Power lines running from Colstrip deliver electricity west to utility customers. Nationwide, coal-sourced energy reached its peak capacity of 318 gigawatts in 2011. It’s since been on an unbroken downward trend, and lost half that in the last 15 years while renewable sources have surged. Credit: Ben Allan Smith / Missoulian

For decades, Montana has developed its infrastructure, schools and other public works with coal money. The Coal Tax Trust Fund still has nearly $1 billion in the bank, and interest on that money gets deployed throughout the state by the Legislature.

However, that resource is itself finite and fallible. As Mark Haggerty of the Center for American Progress put it, the state drove its coal ambitions by looking in the rear-view mirror.

“After the copper barons and Anaconda Company collapsed, the state was left with big holes in the ground and no wealth,” Haggerty said. “We were going to do coal differently, so we imposed a high severance tax. The narrative is we’ve done quite well.

“But that money is sent to deal with the impacts of development, not transition or re-investment. It was set up to deal with the impact of opening a mine. Closure costs are really different. You have to invest in things that don’t have anything to do with coal, and change the economy to something else.”

The range of taxpayer-funded opportunities aimed at Montana’s coal country includes:

The EPA’s  Environmental & Climate Justice Community Change Program provides $2 billion in community-based grants for projects that reduce pollution, increase community climate resilience, and build community capacity to respond to environmental and climate justice challenges. 

The Department of Energy’s Energy Community Tax Credit Bonus applies to every census tract of Powder River and Bighorn counties, which encompass the Crow and Northern Cheyenne reservations, as well as Colstrip in Rosebud County and Treasure and Musselshell counties surrounding the Signal Peak coal mine. It provides a 10% tax credit for any new project or technology development in a region where a fossil-fueled industry has recently closed or been retired. 

Abandoned mine lands will receive $725 million to clean up legacy pollution. Montana has been allocated $4.6 million of that, with tribal projects getting priority. Brownfield sites of abandoned pollution deposits can apply for a share of $232 million. The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement has an additional $130 million for its Abandoned Mine Land Economic Revitalization program, for economic and community development. The Crow Tribe has already received $3.67 million from the fund. 

Coal seam fire prevention, aimed at Rosebud, Powder River, Custer, Treasure and Bighorn counties, including the Crow and Northern Cheyenne reservations and Colstrip, has a $10 million dedicated fund. The Northern Cheyenne Reservation had 74 coal seam fires in recent history, including one that triggered a 170,000-acre wildfire. Eighty active coal seams on the reservation have caused an average of five wildfires a year there. 


This three-month investigation was supported by a Kozik Environmental Justice Reporting grant funded by the National Press Foundation and the National Press Club Journalism Institute. The series was produced by reporter Rob Chaney and Missoulian photographer Ben Allan Smith in collaboration with Montana Free Press. Tom Lutey contributed research. 

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Train derails near Glacier, spills hundreds of tons of grain

Train derails near Glacier, spills hundreds of tons of grain

A busy rail corridor through northwest Montana was closed over the weekend after a train derailed and spilled hundreds of tons of grain on the southern edge of Glacier National Park. 

On Saturday morning at approximately 5:42 a.m., a westbound BNSF Railway grain train derailed near Bear Creek, about four miles east of Essex. Nobody was injured in the derailment but 12 rail cars went off the tracks, with two sliding down a steep embankment above U.S. Highway 2. BNSF officials told Montana Free Press that the cause of the derailment was under investigation. 

The derailment blocked both main line tracks for hours and forced the closure of BNSF’s busy route between the Midwest and Pacific Northwest. Passengers aboard Amtrak’s Empire Builder, which connects Chicago with Portland and Seattle, had to ride buses between Whitefish and Shelby to get around the derailment. One of the main line tracks was cleared and rebuilt by late Saturday, enabling some rail traffic to resume through the area. The second main line track was expected to reopen by Monday. 

While no hazardous material was spilled in the wreck, the hundreds of tons of grain that did will likely concern wildlife officials in northwest Montana. Grain spilled along Glacier Park from leaking rail cars or derailments has been an issue for decades because when the grain ferments it attracts bears to the railroad right-of-way. 

According to a lawsuit filed earlier this year by two environmental groups, BNSF trains have allegedly “killed or contributed to the deaths” of more than 50 bears between 2008 and 2018, between Shelby and Sandpoint, Idaho. BNSF has been working with wildlife officials to come up with a plan to address the issue, most notably by thoroughly cleaning up derailment sites. On Saturday afternoon, at least two vacuum trucks were spotted at the derailment site ready to begin picking up the spilled grain. 

According to the Federal Railroad Administration, more than 1,000 trains derail every year in the United States.

In-depth, independent reporting on the stories impacting your community from reporters who know your town.

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Montana businessman gets 2 years in prison for role in Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol

Montana businessman gets 2 years in prison for role in Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol

A Montana business owner and supporter of former President Donald Trump has been sentenced to two years in federal prison for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that interrupted certification of the 2020 Electoral College vote.

Henry Phillip “Hank” Muntzer, 55, of Dillon was also sentenced Thursday to a year of supervised release and ordered to pay $2,000 in restitution.

Muntzer was arrested two weeks after the siege based on social media posts and videos taken inside the Capitol, according to court records.

He was found guilty in February of obstructing an official proceeding and civil disorder, both felonies, following a bench trial before U.S. District Court Judge Jia M. Cobb. Muntzer was also found guilty of four misdemeanor charges. However, the charge of obstructing an official proceeding was dismissed before sentencing because a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June made it more difficult to prosecute that charge.

Prosecutors presented evidence that Muntzer and a group of friends traveled to Washington to attend the “Stop the Steal” rally. After Trump’s speech at the Ellipse, Muntzer joined the crowd walking to the Capitol, where he spent about 38 minutes inside.

Muntzer was involved in physical confrontations with law enforcement officers near the Senate chamber and in the Capitol Rotunda, resisted law enforcement efforts to get him to leave and was among the last to do so, prosecutors said.

More than 1,500 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. Over 1,000 rioters have been convicted and sentenced. Roughly 650 of them received prison time ranging from a few days to 22 years.

In Dillon, Muntzer is known for a pro-QAnon mural on the building that houses his appliance store, according to the Dillon Tribune. Many QAnon followers believe in baseless conspiracy theories.

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Can Montana’s ‘last rural Democrat’ survive another election?

Three Affiliated Tribes emergency responders combat 11,000-acre Bear Den Fire

Community support has been overwhelming as the Three Affiliated Tribes battle round-the-clock to contain wildfires raging across northwest North Dakota. 

One of at least six outbreaks over the weekend, the Bear Den Fire near Mandaree remains 20% contained at time of publication. As of early afternoon more than 11,000 acres were actively burning, including significant portions of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation.

The fire has burned more than 28,000 acres since it began early Saturday, according to the North Dakota Forest Service. They said a priority on Monday was controlling the fires with air support from the National Guard Black Hawk helicopters. 

Three Affiliated Tribes emergency responders combat 11,000-acre Bear Den Fire
The estimated perimetere of the Bear Den Fire over the past 24 hours. Map from the Fire Information for Resource Management System US/ Canada maintained by the U.S. Forest Service and NASA.

The Bear Den Fire destroyed two residences and multiple structures but caused no injuries, according to authorities. The Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation’s Emergency Operations Center lifted mandatory evacuation orders for residents of both Four Bears and West reservation segments by Sunday afternoon.

Authorities said a fire located near Ray killed one man, 26-year-old Johannes Nicolaas Van Eeden of South Africa, and left another in critical condition.  

As crews continue battling blazes that began in the early morning hours on Saturday, community members are ensuring hot meals, toiletries and other supplies are available to those coming off long shifts or residents affected by the fires. 

Rancher Howard Fettig was on fire watch near Bear Den Bay when he spoke to Buffalo’s Fire in the late morning on Monday. It’s been “neighbors helping neighbors, both on and off reservation,” he said. 

MHA Nation’s Emergency Operations Center in New Town is requesting donated snacks, coffee, toiletries, and bottled water. Community members at the Emergency Response building in Mandaree welcome donations of brown paper bags to make sack lunches, toilet paper, paper towels, hand soap, kitchen trash bags, coffee, bath towels, and laundry soap. 

Lyda Spotted Bear told Buffalo’s Fire the support staff and fire fighters have been very thankful for the consistent supply of hot meals as they rotate through shifts. A steady flow of local volunteers is providing supplies and delivery, Spotted Bear said.

The fire’s path missed Fettig’s home by just half a mile, razing fences, trees and the pasture where he had planned to graze animals this fall. 

The crisis was nowhere over, he said, as Monday’s southern winds were making flare-ups’ path unpredictable. 

He was one of many farmers and ranchers standing by with tractors to create fire lines –  stretches of tilled soil stopping the spread of flames.

Smoke cast a wide plume from fires burning on the Fort Berthold Reservation as seen in this view on Saturday evening south of Lake Sakakawea. (Photo Credit/ Jodi Rave Spotted Bear)

“I think it’s an eye-opener,” Fettig said. He hopes people understand it will happen again and “we need to have a better understanding on how to protect people.” Western North Dakota is in moderate to severe drought with no relief of dry conditions in the near future. 

The Bear Den Fire drew  a coordinated response from the tribes,  U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, North Dakota Forest Service, Department of Emergency Services, Army National Guard and Highway Patrol. 

Dry conditions and high northwest winds – with gusts recorded over 75 miles per hour – pushed fires southeast on Saturday. The exact cause of the fires remains unknown. 

Elkhorn Fire, which has burned more than 20,000 acres south of Watford City, was 20% contained Monday afternoon, with no reported injuries or destroyed residences.

By Sunday evening, emergency responders had almost entirely contained a fire near Arnegard and another by Charlson, the Garrison Fire near Emmet and two fires that merged between Ray and Tioga. Downed power lines have left more than 300 without electricity statewide. 

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Century of trauma fuels Lakota push to revoke Wounded Knee medals

At a hearing last week in Rapid City, S.D, a roomful of people offered more than six hours of testimony. Area tribes testified in favor of revoking military Medal of Honor awards to cavalrymen of the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre.

Descendants of massacre victims and survivors answered an invitation from Oglala Sioux Tribal President Frank Star Comes Out to join the hearing on Sept. 18. The live broadcast took place pursuant to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s July order for a review of the 19 Medal of Honor awards.

Robert Anderson, the Interior Department’s principal deputy solicitor, joined review panel chair Tom James in the hearing. Anderson will prepare a report for the Defense Department, which will submit recommendations to President Biden, according to James.

Century of trauma fuels Lakota push to revoke Wounded Knee medals
Descendants of massacre victims and survivors answered an invitation from Oglala Sioux Tribal President Frank Star Comes Out to join the hearing on Sept. 18. (Photo Credit/ Facebook/Frank Star Comes Out)

The speakers carried on a century-old pressure campaign to rescind the honors that stem from one of the worst massacres in the country’s Indian Wars. In addition to being descendants of massacre survivors, many witnesses spoke from their perspectives as military veterans. It was the U.S. 7th Cavalry that gunned down over 300 unarmed Lakota men, women, and children after their surrender at Wounded Knee, S.D.

Star Comes Out, a veteran, argued the medals violated military rules of engagement, as the soldiers killed unarmed civilians. “I don’t see any honor in that… They should be court martialed instead of honored,” he said.

Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Chairman Ryman LeBeau highlighted the intergenerational trauma the massacre has inflicted on the Lakota people. “My grandmother would say, ‘There’s a pervasive sadness throughout our people.’ And I believe she was talking about that historical trauma that we all carry.” His grandmother Marcella LeBeau served as a World War II nurse and fought for revocation of the medals until her death at 102.

Cheyenne River Sioux citizen Manny Iron Hawk spoke of losing his grandfather, uncle and other relatives during the massacre on the Pine Ridge Reservation. A high school teacher, he recounted his grandmother’s harrowing account of her survival. Growing up with such stories he and others said the emotional and psychological impact passed down over the years.

“We talk about trauma in the DNA, and that transferred to me—but I want to stop that,” he said. “This issue is our fight today. We need to finish it. We don’t want to pass it on to our children and grandchildren. We descendants look at this as a medicine way.”

Iron Hawk received cheers for telling officials,”You have the authority to make this right. Either revoke all the medals, or don’t revoke them at all.”

Janet Alkire, the first woman elected to chair the Standing Rock Tribe, linked the massacre to the prior killing of Chief Sitting Bull. She said, “Had Sitting Bull not been arrested, Wounded Knee would never have happened.”

When Minneconjou Chief Spotted Elk, known to the settlers as Big Foot, learned of Sitting Bull’s assassination, he knew there would be trouble, as Dee Brown relates in “Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee.” He gathered his band and headed toward Pine Ridge. En route the 7th Cavalry intercepted them, escorted them to the place where they camped along Wounded Knee Creek. It was there the following morning that the massacre occurred.

An Air Force veteran who served in both Desert Shield and Desert Storm, Alkire said, “Medals are for valor and bravery.” The soldiers at Wounded Knee “did not demonstrate that. It’s like a slap in the face, too, because you don’t kill women and children,” she said.

Cedric Broken Nose, a descendant of Wounded Knee survivors, shared his family’s painful history, including how his great-grandfather had instructed relatives to keep mum about it. “Do not tell the story,” Broken Nose paraphrased. “Otherwise, the United States government is going to find you and do the same thing to you, too – to eliminate you.”

Oglala Sioux Tribal President Frank Star Comes Out, center, delivered a powerful introduction, underscoring the tribes’ long history of injustice and their determination to see the medals revoked. Here he speaks directly to Panel Chair Tom James, seated in front of him. (Photo Credit/ Video screen shot, Vivian High Elk, 2KC Media)

Cheryl Dupris, retired paratrooper of the Army’s 82nd Airborne, brought a prophecy to the hearing. She is a sister of Arvol Looking Horse, who is the designated carrier of the Great Sioux Nation’s White Buffalo Calf Woman’s sacred bundle.

“The White Buffalo Calf Woman came to give us a message to the Miniconjou,” she said. “She told us the prophecy of the military coming, the white men coming, the invaders. But this is a prophecy she sent me to tell you—that you will get these awards rescinded.”

Sicangu Lakota grandmother and water protector Cheryl Angel was among several witnesses who noted the troops at Standing Rock and Wounded Knee were acting outside their jurisdiction. They should not have deployed after the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty that reserved the territory for the Seven Council Fires of the Great Sioux Nation.

The treaties signed between Native nations and the U.S. government were supposed to uphold the welfare of her people, she said. “We signed treaties and were massacred even as we honored them,” she said. “Because we agreed to live in peace. Now give that to us,” she said.

“My relatives, it’s been over a hundred years,” said Angel. “Start somewhere. Rescind those medals, now, Biden. It’s a good time to start.”

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Montana Preps for Potential Grizzly Bear Delisting

” width=”224″ height=”168″ align=”right” hspace=”10″ alt=”The future of grizzlies hangs in the balance as FWS weighs delisting” title=”The future of grizzlies hangs in the balance as FWS weighs delisting” />State Fish, Wildlife and Parks has released its final EIS proposing a statewide grizzly management plan.

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