The Montana Farm Bureau has submitted a letter to U.S. House of Representatives leadership urging them to take up the Fort Belknap Indian Community (FBIC) Water Settlement Act of 2024 (S.1987).

“The Milk River Project in north central Montana is aptly referred to as the “Lifeline of the Highline” because it provides water to over 120,000 acres of productive farmland, several towns, and two tribes,” said MFBF President Cyndi Johnson in her letter to Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and Democrat Leader Hakeem Jeffries. “Just over one week ago, a portion of the Milk River Project near Babb, Montana, suffered a disastrous failure, flooding the nearby community and threatening the economic certainty of a large portion of our state.

Johnson explained that the FBIC provides the assistance to restore St. Mary’s Canal that MFBF members have been asking for and negotiating about for more than 20 years. This legislation will provide $275 million for Milk River Project infrastructure repairs and to restore the St. Mary’s Canal.

“Without the essential repairs S. 1987 will provide to the Milk River Project, a large portion of our state will literally dry up and it’s not just our state that will suffer,” said Johnson, adding, “According to the Milk River Joint Board of Control, this project and the agriculture it supports raise enough food to feed 1 million people.”

The Conrad wheat farmer explained, “Our members, these rural communities, and our state will be put in great jeopardy if this project is not repaired quickly and completely. Please act promptly on the Fort Belknap Indian Community Water Settlement Act of 2024.”

By Chris Woodward, The Center Square

Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen is pleased that a federal judge in Kansas has agreed with his request to block President Joe Biden’s student loan relief effort.

“This is great news that a court is blocking the President’s plan to buy votes from young, recent graduates and driving our country deeper into debt,” said Knudsen in a press release.

The Biden administration said the president’s SAVE Plan would cancel over $100 billion in student loan debt and help struggling families make ends meet.

The attorney general views the loan relief effort as more of a “loan cancellation scheme” in an election year.

“Hardworking Montanans should not be forced to foot the bill for anyone’s education, but their own,” the attorney general said.

The ruling comes after a lawsuit from Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach. Knudsen joined that effort with the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina, Texas and Utah.

The attorneys general said the Department of Education wrongly interpreted the Higher Education Act and went around the U.S. House and Senate to write its own rules.

“We’re talking about folks who are literally being crushed,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre told reporters in May. “They’re trying to get their lives back on track.”

Knudsen argued that cancellation of student loans would harm Montana’s economy through a loss of state tax revenue and jobs, as well as increasing law enforcement costs. Knudsen also points out that the United States Supreme Court told Biden in 2022 that he did not have the authority to unilaterally cancel student loans through the HEROES Act.

A government grant of $3.2 million will purchase electric school buses for Billings School District 2 this coming school year in partnership with First Student, the district’s transportation contractor. The grant, through the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) will cover the cost of purchasing the buses and constructing the charging infrastructure.

According to reports the cost of an electric school bus is about $400,000 – about four times the cost of a diesel school bus.

Public schools are claiming a new reasoning, besides a threat of global warming, for using electric vehicles. They are concerned about the exposure to diesel exhaust for children. They point out that diesel exhaust is a known carcinogen, to which children are being exposed on a daily basis.

The electric school bus has no exhaust to be concerned about.

Havre School District used electric school buses last year, to high acclaim. Not even cold weather was a detriment, they reported. Apparently, researchers are finding ways to enable EVs to deal with the cold. A system, called e-Thermal bank, is separate from the main EV battery and combines a chemical heat pump with microwave energy to produce heating or cooling on demand. Researchers estimate that the e-Thermal bank can deliver a range extension of up to 70% at a cost that is less than expanding battery capacity.

Billings is apparently getting the federal funds to buy the buses because Billings is included in a federal “Clean Cities program”. Billings and other Montana cities, as well as communities in Idaho and Wyoming are part of a special region called Yellowstone-Teton Clean Cities or YTCC’s.

YTCC functions as the Department of Energy’s on-the-ground advocate focused on petroleum displacement activities in the Greater Yellowstone Region. YTCC’s mission is to reduce consumption of traditional petroleum-based fuels in the three- state region; encourage and expand the use of alternative fuels, and advanced vehicle technologies by promoting other transportation options.

 Other than YTCC, the Clean Cities Program has about 90 communities targeted.

Other cities included in YTCC are Bozeman, Big Sky, West Yellowstone and others surrounding Yellowstone Park – – as the federal government is making an effort make the greater Yellowstone Region the focus of a petroleum displacement area.

Many of the cities are getting funds to build electric charging stations.

A lawsuit filed on June 12, by the American Farm Bureau Federation and 11 other groups, challenges the lawfulness of the Bureau of Land Management’s Public Lands Rule, which threatens the future of ranching in the U.S. by destabilizing a decades-old tradition of grazing on federal lands.

Gary Heibertshausen, a sheep rancher in Montana and Farm Bureau member, says access to public lands for livestock grazing is crucial to the success of his ranch. “If Willow Creek Partners could not graze its livestock on federal land, we would be forced to sell our sheep and cease operating as a ranch.”

Heibertshausen and his partners hold six grazing permits covering several thousand acres of federal lands. He is supporting the case, saying the BLM rule creates substantial risk and uncertainty for ranchers, adding, “Under the rule, we can no longer be certain that the public lands on which we currently rely for grazing will remain available for grazing over the coming years.”

BLM issued the final rule in May with a stated goal of increasing the health and resilience of public lands, but a lack of clarity in the rule and changes in policy that are not authorized by law make it unacceptable. The rule also makes it more difficult for ranchers to play an important role in the stewardship of public lands.

AFBF President Zippy Duvall said, “Further restricting grazing on public lands takes us backward not forward because ranchers are delivering a return on the trust placed in them to care for public lands. They are clearing brush that could fuel wildfires, controlling invasive species, and bringing overall health benefits to the land.”

The benefits of grazing range from reducing wildfire risk and slowing the spread of invasive weeds to building robust root systems and spurring forage growth for native species. The misguided Public Lands Rule threatens the important balance our country has achieved on public lands, as well as the future stability of the many ranches that depend on grazing permits.

BLM oversees approximately 245 million acres of property in the West, which amounts to one-tenth of all U.S. land. For nearly a century, farmers and ranchers have worked with the federal government to ensure Western land can be used for both public enjoyment and agricultural use. So the rule changes to the management of public lands have broad implications for agriculture and the future for America’s ranchers.