The vote tosses aside years of consultation the BLM conducted with tribal leaders, ranchers, farmers, and other people whose livelihood and communities are at stake.
by Ted Brewer, WORC communications director
This week, the Senate used the Congressional Review Act to cancel the Bureau of Land Management’s current Miles City (Montana) and North Dakota Resource Management Plans (RMPs). Both land-use plans underwent years of consultation with dozens of tribal nations and with hundreds of local ranchers, farmers, property owners, and others whose livelihoods depend on responsible management of public lands and minerals in eastern Montana and throughout North Dakota. The cancellation of the plans means that coal leasing can resume in Montana’s Powder River Basin and that management of lands in North Dakota administered by the BLM now reverts to a plan finalized in 1988.
Mandated by the National Historic Preservation Act to protect Native homelands, hunting grounds, burial grounds, and other sacred and cultural places, the BLM developed the Miles City RMP in consultation with 17 tribal nations, the North Dakota RMP in consultation with more than 20, including the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara (MHA) Tribal Nation.
As a result, the BLM established a half-mile “no surface occupancy” buffer around the Missouri River, Lake Oahe, and Lake Sakakawea to safeguard drinking water for thousands of MHA citizens and their communities in North Dakota, including Fort Berthold. No such buffer exists under the 1988 RMP, and coal and oil and gas leasing can now proceed into areas that could result in drinking water contamination. The BLM will be prohibited from ever adding that buffer again unless Congress legislates it.
“The land-use plan the Senate cancelled allowed fossil fuel development to continue on public lands, but not in a way that could desecrate places that are vital to Native culture and could contaminate the water that downstream communities, Fort Berthod especially, absolutely depend on,” said Lisa Finley-DeVille, citizen of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara (MHA) Tribal Nation and a member of North Dakota Native Vote and Dakota Resource Council. “Now, the fossil fuel industry has carte blanche to pollute our water and run roughshod over our homelands, hunting grounds, burial grounds, and other sacred and culturally important places.”
“The federal government has a trust responsibility to Tribes,” she added. “That means respecting sovereignty, honoring treaties, and protecting our resources. Sens. Hoeven and Cramer betrayed that trust and thumbed their noses at the years of work invested by the MHA and other nations to protect the health of our people, communities, and cultures.”
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The Miles City RMP cancelled today allowed mining companies on the Montana side of the Powder River Basin to continue developing federal coal they had leased before 2024. That includes the Spring Creek Mine, which has enough coal under lease to continue operating through 2035, and the Rosebud Mine, which has enough under lease to continue mining until 2060.
The coal market is currently flooded, as indicated this week when the Navajo Transitional Energy Company bid $186,000 to lease 167 million tons of coal, which equates to one-tenth of a penny per ton. The NTEC argued in favor of a rock-bottom, next-to-nothing market value for coal pointing to government studies that predict coal markets will decline significantly over the next two decades as fewer utilities buy the fuel. In response to this bid, the Department of the Interior indefinitely postponed a lease sale in Wyoming that was scheduled to occur yesterday.
The news happened to follow a report from Ember showing that renewables overtook coal’s share in global electricity demand.
“Demonstrating they have become outright minions of the fossil fuel industry, Sens. Daines and Sheehy did the industry’s bidding and laid waste to years of consultation the BLM conducted with local tribal leaders, ranchers, farmers, outfitters, and other Montanans to ensure that coal mining can co-exist in the Powder River Basin without destroying our livelihoods,” said Jeanie Alderson, co-owner and co-operator of Bones Brothers Ranch and Omega Beef in Birney and a board member of the Northern Plains Resource Council. “Now, coal mining companies have free rein to wipe out aquifers, wreck big game habitat, and dig coal out from under private property without the consent of landowners.”
Mark Fix, a rancher in Miles City and member of Northern Plains Resource Council, added,
“What the hell happened to Daines and Sheehy’s conservatism, to their belief in local control and less government? Their votes today couldn’t be more top-down, more political, or more disconnected from the needs and interests of Montanans who will be most affected by their actions. They’re like Communist central economic planners, trying to prop up an industry on its last legs and leaving those of us who live here with the contamination, pollution, and other consequences of their terrible decisions. And that could include ranchers and other public land permittees losing their leases over this vote thanks to the legal chaos it unleashes.”
In response to the Senate vote day, Curt Stofferahn, resident of Fargo and board chair of the Dakota Resource Council, said, “Sens. Hoeven and Cramer’s actions today run counter to North Dakota’s long tradition of local control and letting the market drive our future. By intervening to prop up an aging coal industry, they’re ignoring the work and priorities of North Dakotans who helped shape the state’s resource management plan.
“Globally, renewable energy has now surpassed coal in electricity generation during the first half of the year, because renewables are simply more affordable to produce. If we cling to coal instead of moving forward with the rest of the world, North Dakotans will end up paying higher electricity prices and missing out on future opportunities.”
Learn more:
The Administration’s Fixation on Coal Makes No Sense
WORC Members Push Back as Administration Moves to Reopen Coal Leasing in the Powder River Basin
Huge Win: Biden Administration to End Coal Leasing in Powder River Basin