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Bull Mountains Mine Expansion Tucked into Budget Bill

11 June 2025
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By Amanda Eggert, Montana Free Press

Congress has tucked an 800-acre expansion of an underground Montana coal mine into a budget reconciliation bill that cleared its first committee vote last week.

A two-page provision of the Natural Resources Committee’s bill authorizes Signal Peak Energy to access federally owned coal beneath central Montana’s Bull Mountains in accordance with an expansion plan the company submitted to the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement in 2020.

The House Committee on Natural Resources voted in the early morning hours of May 7 to advance the nearly 100-page bill, with Republicans in favor and all Democrats except Rep. Adam Gray of California opposed. The bill is part of a larger budget reconciliation package that representatives are expected to debate in the coming weeks in the House Budget Committee and on the House floor.

In addition to directing the Interior Department to authorize an expansion of the Bull Mountains Mine, the bill allows for noncompetitive leases of federally owned fossil fuels, creates a pathway for companies to pay for expedited review — and guaranteed approval — of environmental impact statements, reduces royalty rates for coal, oil and gas, and reverses the Biden administration’s moratorium on new coal leasing in the Powder River Basin of southern Montana and northern Wyoming.  

According to committee members’ remarks on the bill during the nearly 12-hour hearing, the budget bill is either the “most extreme anti-environment bill in American history” and part of an agenda to “help Big Oil executives and billionaires profit any way they can,” or a sincere effort to address the country’s national debt by “delivering on the American people’s mandate to restore common sense to the federal government and stop the fiscal bleeding.” 

Committee Republicans estimated the bill will generate $18 billion in new revenue and savings. Democratic members of the committee argued that Republicans are forwarding a flawed fiscal argument and said the measure would increase the country’s deficit.

Environmentalists and agricultural groups opposed to coal mining’s effects on the state’s climate and water resources are critical of the bill’s Bull Mountains Mine provision, arguing that Signal Peak should be subject to the standard environmental review process outlined in the National Environmental Policy Act.

Shiloh Hernandez, an Earthjustice attorney representing environmental and climate groups in litigation about the Bull Mountains Mine, described the measure as a “giveaway to Signal Peak” that reflects both how “desperate” the company is for an expansion and its clout with Montana’s all-Republican federal delegation. (Montana Reps. Troy Downing and Ryan Zinke do not sit on the House Natural Resources Committee.)

“The Office of Surface Mining has been reversed twice now for not following the law in permitting the mine,” Hernandez told Montana Free Press May 14. “If the Trump administration was following the law, they wouldn’t have to create a legal exception for the mine, which is what the reconciliation bill is doing.”

Pat Thiele, a Roundup resident who serves as vice-chair of the Bull Mountain Land Alliance, argues that regulators should take a “hard look at the mine’s impacts.”

“Why is the U.S. Congress rushing through legislation that benefits a criminally convicted corporation while risking further damage and safety risks to our community?” Thiele wrote in an emailed statement to MTFP. “We’re tired of politicians spending all of their time bending over backwards for corporations while ignoring the concerns of everyday people like me and my neighbors simply trying to protect our land and water.”

In 2022, Signal Peak was fined $1 million for illegally dumping mine waste and violating safety standards. Executives with the company were separately convicted of drug and firearm violations, embezzlement, tax evasion and bank fraud. 

All four of Montana’s elected federal officials have supported efforts to expand the Bull Mountains Mine. In 2023, Sen. Steve Daines and Rep. Ryan Zinke wrote in a letter to then-Interior Secretary Deb Haaland that more than $100 million in revenues and royalties are riding on the expansion, and saying the U.S. government has a national security dog in the fight. 

The vast majority of coal pulled from beneath the Bull Mountains is bound for Asia via a shipping terminal in Canada. Signal Peak’s access to international markets appears to have made it less vulnerable to the demand decline that’s squeezing mines more reliant on domestic markets, according to Hernandez.

Judge blocks coal mine expansion sought by Signal Peak

In a Feb. 10 ruling, a Missoula judge found that the federal government’s environmental review of Signal Peak Energy’s proposal to expand the Bull Mountains Mine harbored “sufficiently serious” errors. The order effectively halts Signal Peak from mining federal coal until an environmental impact statement has been completed.

Signal Peak and the Montana Coal Council did not respond to MTFP’s requests for comment.

The budget bill comes amid Signal Peak’s frustration with the pace of the Interior Department’s production of a court-mandated environmental impact statement on the mine.

In 2023, a federal district court judge in Missoula ordered federal regulators to prepare an environmental impact statement to examine how a 7,100-acre expansion would impact climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions and local water supplies. Signal Peak has been impatient with the time the EIS is taking, telling the Yellowstone County Commission last year that the company will run out of coal to mine sometime this year if the expansion is further delayed, and that 262 jobs are at stake.

If the plan is approved, Signal Peak could garner access to an additional 175 million tons of coal, bolstering its position as one of the country’s largest underground coal mines.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, has set a goal of passing the budget package out of his chamber by Memorial Day to comply with Trump’s request that Congress present him with a “big, beautiful bill” to sign by July 4.

This story was originally published by Montana Free Press at montanafreepress.org.

Bill 1 Agressively Cuts Wind and Solar

11 June 2025
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The reconciliation package passed by the US House of Representatives, aggressively sunsetted wind and solar energy subsidies – more aggressively than an earlier version would have, according to Isasc Orr and Mitch Rolling on Substack.com.

While the original version would have gradually phased out the “clean electricity production credit” and the “clean electricity investment credit” for all resources starting in 2029 and ending them in 2032, the new version will end technology-neutral clean electricity tax credits for sources including wind and solar starting in 2029. It will also require those projects to begin construction within 60 days of the legislation becoming law and be placed in service by 2028.

The law also includes provisions that bar U.S. projects from using components, subcomponents, or even materials from China that would make it nearly impossible for US solar and battery manufacturers to qualify for the tax incentives, according to analysts at Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Bloomberg reports that without the tax credits, returns for renewable power plants could drop below the threshold necessary to stimulate investment and likely spur a strategic capital shift away from the US.

The amount of wind and solar installed in the future is likely to drop dramatically compared to the endless taxpayer handouts for wind and solar in the Biden administration’s IRA.

“The House bill saves money for taxpayers and helps stop the continued erosion of grid reliability by stopping subsidies for wind and solar while still providing a temporary leg up for nuclear power,” said the Substack.com report.

Entities such as Energy Innovation Policy & Technology advance arguments in support of the subsidies with the claim that without them costs will increase for customers. Orr and Rolling rebut the claim stating, “This could be true if you happen to live in a state with aggressive mandates for wind and solar, because these foolhardy policies will require utilities to construct these intermittent energy sources regardless of the cost. Therefore, without the subsidies, ratepayers will be on the hook for the full cost of transitioning to wind and solar and will no longer get to shift this cost onto taxpayers. However, the key reason costs will go up is that lawmakers are mandating the adoption of wind and solar in the first place.”

“…repealing the subsidies will make it more difficult for monopoly utilities to pretend that wind, solar, and battery storage are cheaper than keeping the existing coal and nuclear plants online and using new combined cycle natural gas to meet incremental increases in electricity demand.”

Another claim that is made about the need for subsidies is that “red” states benefit more from the subsidies than “blue” states.

While it’s true that many of the manufacturing plants that are supposedly under construction due to the IRA are located in “red” states, this is not because of the benevolence of Congressional Democrats who passed the IRA in 2022, wrote Orr and Rolling. They point out that “manufacturing facilities are going to ‘red’ states because ‘blue’ states are generally more hostile to businesses with higher taxes, higher energy prices, and higher labor costs.”

Repealing these subsidies will prevent the malinvestment of this capital into non-competitive industries, and the tax provisions in the reconciliation package designed to boost domestic manufacturing will disproportionately flow to “redder” states for the same reasons the IRA money was going there: they have healthier overall economies that are accommodating to growth.

Furthermore, “benefit” is the key word here. While the IRA subsidies sparked investment in wind and solar energy, doing so ultimately resulted in (and would continue to produce) electricity grids prone to blackouts—which leads to myth three: that these sources of electricity are needed because we are in an energy emergency, and we need more electricity generation capabilities to power data centers.

“While wind, solar, and batteries may have short construction times, we have yet to read an article about a data center developer who is eager to run their facility intermittently and subject to swings in the weather.”

“Our reliability modeling has shown consistently that even with tens of thousands of MWs of battery storage available, a grid reliant on intermittent wind and solar is more prone to blackouts because it still needs to deal with the issue of prolonged droughts and severe underperformance, and the batteries don’t charge themselves.

Will Tax Bill bring Balance?

20 May 2025
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After extensive debate about various proposals in the waning hours of the Montana State Legislature, the body passed two tax bills: House Bill 231 and Senate Bill 542. More so than tax cuts, amid claims that the new law is complicated, legislators said the new law will “rebalance” the state’s property tax system.

It shifts higher taxes onto business properties and second homes.

Having passed so late in the session, implementing the new law this year is not possible, so legislators added interim rates and a $400 rebate to serve until next year.

 Rep. Llew Jones, (R) Conrad, who introduced the bill, said that it will significantly reduce taxes for owner-occupied homes and long-term rental properties. How much they will experience a tax reduction depends upon what local governing entities, cities and towns, set as budgets. Properties not determined to be primary homes or long-term rentals are likely to see substantial tax increases.

The new law will lower the value of a property used in calculating its tax. The rate or percentage of value that must be paid in taxes, however, can be changed based upon what kind of property it is, which allows the tax burden to be shifted to a different class of property. Higher rates of taxation will be applied to business and agricultural properties.

Wendy Swenson to Head Visit Southeast Montana

20 May 2025
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Visit Southeast Montana, managed by the Billings Chamber of Commerce, announced the hiring of Wendy Swenson as its new Executive Director.

With more than 15 years of tourism marketing experience, Swenson brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the organization, which promotes the region as a premier travel destination.

Swenson returns to Montana after serving as the Director of Tourism Marketing for Travel Alaska, where she led the statewide destination marketing program.

Her career in tourism includes significant experience with Destination Marketing Organizations in West Yellowstone and Big Sky, Montana, giving her deep connections to the state’s tourism industry.

“We are thrilled to welcome Wendy Swenson to the Visit Southeast Montana team,” said Jessica Malone, Chairperson of Southeast Montana Board of Directors. “Her extensive tourism marketing background, passion for Montana, and understanding of our region make her the ideal leader to guide our organization forward.”

Throughout her career, Swenson has demonstrated exceptional skills in strategic development, advertising, content marketing, public relations, social media management, website optimization, research, travel trade development, and international relations. Her comprehensive approach to destination marketing aligns perfectly with Visit Southeast Montana’s mission to showcase the region’s unique attractions and experiences.

“I am honored to return to Montana and lead Visit Southeast Montana,” said Swenson. “I look forward to working with our partners and communities to highlight Southeast Montana’s distinctive character and attract visitors to discover all that this remarkable part of the state has to offer.”

Swenson and her husband are avid outdoor enthusiasts. When not promoting tourism, she can often be found experiencing the very attractions that make Southeast Montana a special destination.

Tourism Important To Billings Economy

20 May 2025
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The first week in May was recognized as National Travel and Tourism Week.

Visit Billings, with the Billings Chamber of Commerce, took the opportunity to underscore the importance of tourism to the Billings economy with the following information: Billings welcomes 2.6 million visitors annually, generating $621 million in spending and accounting for 20.8% of Montana’s travelers. With 55 hotels, hundreds of restaurants, and numerous attractions, Billings is well-equipped to host even more visitors, enhancing our city’s reputation as a premier destination. Tourism benefits Billings by reducing the average tax burden for residents by over $930 per year, supporting 1 in 12 Montana workers, and contributing $1.5 billion in direct employee compensation, 48,000 jobs, and $414 million in state and local taxes from non-resident visitors.

Visit Billings explained that in promoting tourism they collaborate with various organizations at the local, state, and federal levels, including Voices of Montana Tourism, the Montana Travel Association, Montana Lodging and Hospitality Association, Tourism Matters to Montana, the Billings Chamber of Commerce’s Business Advocacy Division, Destinations International, One West Tourism Alliance, and the U.S. Travel Association.

Promoting destinations enhances community well-being and is a crucial investment in economic development and quality of life, says their press release.

Spain’s Blackout No Accident, Not the Last

20 May 2025
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Warnings have been greeted by derision and accusations as the mental derangement of conspiracy theorists, but then on April 28 it happened in Spain. Over half the nation – 50 million people – suffered a country-wide blackout. The biggest blackout in living memory.

Official investigations are on-going, but there’s little doubt that the reason was a sudden drop in power from the country’s electric grid – 15 gigawatts of power disappeared in a matter of seconds. Besides Spain, Portugal and parts of southern France were also impacted. It is Spain’s goal to have a grid powered almost exclusively by wind and solar by 2027, when their first reactor is slated to close in 2027, envisioning a grid powered almost exclusively by wind and solar, according to Epoch Times.

Ironically, the blackouts happened just 12 days after Spain proudly claimed it had powered its grid entirely by renewables for the first time on a weekday, according to PV Magazine.

Energy analysts are predicting that the investigators will find that the region’s heavy reliance on intermittent renewables enabled the grid collapse. To keep the frequency stable, the grid needs an unwavering force of power, referred to as “inertia.” Grid frequency, a 50Hz “heartbeat”, must stay balanced and is fundamental to how electricity travels through the grid.

A report in substack says 15 gigawatts (GW) of power vanished from the grid in a matter of seconds right before the blackout at around 12:35 p.m.

Fossil fuel oil and gas-fired stations and nuclear power plants have traditionally enabled the decades-old grid to keep a consistent frequency, explains Epoch Times. The variable output of renewables – wind and solar — can effectively throw the grid out of balance.

Political officials in Spain are firmly denying that the failure of renewables is the cause. But, they were given warning from industry experts well in advance. In its annual report in February, Red Eléctrica de España, (the Spanish grid operator) which is 20 percent owned by the state, warned about the loss of firm generation performance due to the phasing out of traditional power plants. “The closure of conventional generation plants such as coal, combined cycle, and nuclear (in response to regulatory requirements) leads to a reduction in the firm generation and balancing capacities of the electricity system, as well as its strength and inertia,” it said.

Normally, a drop in frequency can be mitigated by the spinning inertia of large, conventional generators, such as coal, natural gas, nuclear, and hydroelectric plants, explains substack.com, but wind and solar PV are inverter-based resources that do not provide any inertia to the grid, explains substack.com.

Substack explained in simple terms: “The grid essentially acts as one giant rotating mass (because generators are all spinning at exactly to same frequency) and the goal is to keep it rotating continuously. Similar to a rock rolling down a hill —the larger the rock (or the more synchronous generators on the grid), the more inertia it will have to power through any obstacle it may meet.

“Thermal plants create a very large, resilient boulder. Renewables, at best, create a pebble.”

At the time of the blackout, states substack.com, 78 percent of Spain’s electricity was being served by wind and solar, which do not provide meaningful amounts of inertia to the grid, and the remaining 22 percent was unable to make up for the loss in frequency.

Bloomberg, called the outage the “first major blackout of the renewable-energy era.” Given the irrational flight to intermittent energy sources as fail safe solutions to global warming fears, many nations of the world face the same threat.

Substack warns, “We see similar situations in the United States, where the Production Tax Credit (PTC) encourages wind generators to produce electricity even at negative prices. The negative effects of these subsidies are most acute in the Electric Reliability Corporation of Texas (ERCOT) region, where low wholesale power prices can force existing thermal generators off the grid and chill investment in new gas plants needed for reliability.”

If one thinks that tariffs can wreak economic havoc take a hard look at what happens when the grid fails. One outage can cost billions.

The sudden outage caused massive disruption to businesses, hospitals, public transportation, and communication systems, as most of the nation struggled without power for approximately 12 to 14 hours, reports substack.com.

According to the Insurance Journal:

Spain’s main business lobby CEOE estimated the outage would shave 1.6 billion euros ($1.82 billion), or 0.1%, off gross domestic product, noting it could take oil refineries a week or more to resume their operations fully, and that some industrial ovens had been damaged.

The meat industry estimated losses of up to 190 million euros as fridges lost power, among other factors. The blackout lasted more than 12 hours in some areas of Spain.

Other estimates are even higher, as Reuters reports the investment bank RBC said the economic cost of the blackout could range between 2.25 billion euros ($2.56 billion) and 4.5 billion euros ($5.11 billion), equating to 0.11 percent to 0.3 percent of the country’s 2024 gross domestic product (GDP) of $1.72 trillion.

substack.com noted, “Reuters have been quick to point out that the problem with Spain’s grid wasn’t that it was heavily dependent on renewables at the time of the blackouts, but rather that Spain needs to do a better job of managing the renewables.”

The problem for wind and solar advocates, they say, is their arguments that wind and solar are the cheapest forms of energy are reliant upon “creative” accounting schemes that omit many of the costs – costs such as additional transmission lines, backup power generators, overbuilding and curtailment costs, and the costs that would be incurred to build and operate equipment like grid forming inverters and synchronous condensers to bolster system inertia and maintain system frequency.

SBA Celebrates First 100 Days

20 May 2025
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The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) celebrated the tremendous success of the Following the first 100 Days of the Trump Administration, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) highlighted some of his economic wins, including an 80% increase in SBA loan approvals which are driving historic rates of growth, hiring, and investment for America’s small businesses.

The agency laid out its top accomplishments under the leadership of Administrator Kelly Loeffler – including major reforms to cut waste, enhance government efficiency, restore fiscal responsibility, and refocus the agency on its core mission of empowering small businesses and growing the economy.

“In just 100 days, President Trump has restored optimism and opportunity for our job creators with a pro-growth economic agenda that has already slashed inflation, driven job creation, and delivered record investment. At the SBA, we’re driving that agenda forward by serving the massive surge in demand for loans – which is a strong indicator that our small businesses finally have the confidence to hire, expand, and invest,” said SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler. “Anchored by our broader efforts to eliminate waste, enhance efficiency, and restore fiscal responsibility, the SBA is now a powerful engine for American workers and job creators – and in just 100 days, the results speak for themselves.”

Compared to Joe Biden’s First 100 Days, demand for new capital has skyrocketed. President Trump’s SBA has delivered an 80% increase in 7(a) and 504 loan approvals with about 26,000 loans approved for $12.6 billion – indicating a strong surge in small business formation and growth. This includes a 95% increase in loans for businesses with five or fewer employees (nearly 15,500 loans), a 56% increase in loans for new startups (over 3,700 loans), and a 74% increase in 7(a) loans for manufacturers (over 1,500 loans).

In total, about 60% of all new SBA loans in the First 100 Days benefitted America’s smallest job creators, with five or fewer employees. Additionally, over the last three months, the percentage of federal contracts awarded to small businesses has increased from 18% to 23%.

In the First 100 Days, the SBA has also enacted the Day One Priorities announced by Administrator Loeffler when she was first sworn-in. Key agency accomplishments include:

Cutting Waste and Enhancing Efficiency

* Reduced total agency spending by about $190 million.

* Terminated or paused over 120 contracts for about $3 billion in future savings.

* Terminated, consolidated, or relocated 47% of SBA leases – including regional offices located in sanctuary cities.

* Announced an agency-wide reorganization that will reduce the SBA workforce by 43%, restoring it to pre-pandemic levels for a cost savings of $435 million annually by 2026.

Advancing President Trump’s Agenda

* Took the lead on the President’s initiative to restore American industrial dominance, jobs, and national security by launching the Made in America Manufacturing Initiative to cut $100 billion in red tape, improve access to capital, and promote workforce development.

* Enacted President Trump’s Executive Orders, including eliminating the Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility, updating agency collateral to reflect the existence of only two genders, ending the Green Lender Initiative, and terminating the Biden-era MOU with the Michigan Secretary of State’s office.

Restoring Fiscal Responsibility

* Took immediate action to enhance fraud protections within SBA loan programs by mandating that all loan applications include a citizenship and birth date verification.

* Restored underwriting standards and lender fees to the 7(a) loan program in the effort to preserve the zero-subsidy status of the program, protect taxpayers from fiscal liability, and reverse the Biden-era mismanagement that led to historic defaults.

Delivering Disaster Relief

* Approved over 17,000 disaster loans totaling $3.4 billion, far exceeding the total volume of disaster loans approved in all of FY 24 under Biden – including $1.4 billion in Florida, $350 million in North Carolina, and $173 million in Georgia.

Restraining Environmental Regs

20 May 2025
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Governor Gianforte signed into law three bills passed by the Montana State Legislature, which address the state’s environmental laws, largely in response to the Held v. Montana ruling issued by the state Supreme Court last December. Gianforte said, the new law will “provide certainty to Montana businesses, large and small, that are trying to make a living here in our state.” SB 221 was introduced by Wylie Galt (R-Martinsdale). It designates six climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions that the state must inventory in environmental reviews of energy projects — but explicitly directs state agencies to not regulate them. Another bill – -House Bill 291, sponsored by Greg Oblander (R-Billings) – prohibits state agencies from adopting air quality standards stricter than those imposed by federal agencies.

Another bill the Governor signed earlier, HB 285 introduced by Brandon Ler (R-Savage),which repealed sections of an environmental law. The new law directs agencies to consider “the potential long-range character of environmental impacts in Montana and … lend appropriate support to initiatives, resolutions and programs designed to maximize cooperation in anticipating and preventing a decline in the quality of Montana’s environment.”

Rafa’s Brow Boutique and Beauty Salon

20 May 2025
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By Jose Bustos

An Influencer? A Super Influencer?  Possibly!  Who knows who may spearhead the look of beauty and elegance for women and men in Montana. 

Rafael Rivera instinctively knows that and he will with his business, The Brow Boutique located at 3201 13th Street West in Billings. 

Rafa, as Rivera is known, has a business on the forefront of contemporary looks, for both sexes.  For women, a permanent make-up for eye brows and lips, or PMU.  For men he offers haircuts, and for the receding hair line, a scalp micro pigmentation, or SMP.  SMP gives men the appearance of a natural extending hair line where natural balding may occur.

Rafa calculates the growth of his business on the appearance that women and men want for themselves in a new concept known as “Permanent Make-up,” i.e., facial styling.  A fairly new concept in subtle tattoo art for the lips, eye brows, eye liners and scalp artistry.  The creativity of eyebrow enhancement is currently enjoying a phenomenal growth through-out America and expanding into Europe.  Rafa brings this artistry to Billings at the Brow Boutique with the influence in training and experience he adds to his resume with time spent for PMU and SMP in Las Vegas, New York and San Diego.

Rafa and his brother previously owned the Billings Best Barber in downtown Billings, but sold that business to start The Brow Boutique.  The Brow Boutique is a two-fold business that offers vogue hair-cut styles for men and if a gentleman requests, scalp micro pigmentation, (SMP). 

For women, Rafa offers a permanent make-up, a permanent eye brow make over for women that want a “Jewel Standard” for elegant facial appearance.  I was given the unique opportunity to view the procedures for both the SMP and PMU live in Rafa’s Brow Boutique.  Rafa performs his virtuosic, polished techniques. PMU on a young lady’s eye brows, and a SMP on a middle-aged gentleman’s receding hairline.  Both of his clients experienced virtually no sensation other than the vibration of the equipment used for the application of the required permanent dyes.  Rafa uses a soothing and desensitizing ointment prior to the procedure for the comfort of his client.

The need for quality looks and appearance, the latest fashions, generally starts on the East and West coasts, before being absorbed into the interior of America.  Rafa pounced on that concept early.  He discerned the need.  Though states west of the Mississippi are primarily concerned with western American culture, he instinctively knew that today there is a market for a distinctive and contemporary characteristic that many of us search for, i.e., that “latest fashion flair,” thus his introduction.

The procedure of permanent make up is on the rise nationally.  Vanity of course for some, but the value for both women and men is a simple procedure for the covering of scars, burns, and even a correction for a natural lack of eye brow hair.  These procedures are on the forefront of Rafa’s business.

Rafa is well aware of and respects the “rustic look” so many of Montana’s businesses like to display in their particular shop or store, with buffalo and deer mounts, guns and antlers, and fish. They are features you won’t find in The Brow Boutique.  Rafa feels that by decorating his Boutique with the trendy elements of various color combinations, plush furniture, and contemporary art on the walls and floors, brings to his business a relaxing plus chic look to his business.  Upon entering the Brow Boutique, you’ll love the degree of change with a flair of pastels, architectural lighting, and abstract art.  Adding to and enhancing the artistic motif, is a splendor of natural light.  Simply put, the place is just gorgeous!

Rafa is available at 406-717-9187 and by appointment only.

A West Australian energy company is building a $17.5 billion liquified natural gas production and export terminal in Louisiana to expand the U.S. liquified natural gas export market. Perth, Australia-based Woodside Energy plans to develop a three-train, 16.5 million ton per annum liquefied natural gas production and export terminal in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, called Louisiana LNG.

Protecting Women

20 May 2025
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The Montana State Legislature took up the very controversial issues regarding gender autonomy and protection of women’s rights. Three bills were passed:

House Bill 121, which protects women’s and girls’ locker rooms, bathrooms, and private spaces from biological males 

House Bill 300, which safeguardes women’s collegiate sports from unfair competition 

Senate Bill 437, which defines “male,” “female,” and “biological sex” in state law to anchor the state legal system “in reality, not ideology.”