September 5, 2025 - The first Trump administration failed in its attempt to open more federal lands in Montana to resource extraction. Now, during Trump’s second term, Republicans are using Congressional action to avoid similar failure for good.

On Wednesday, on basically party-line votes, the House of Representatives passed three joint resolutions to negate three Resource Management Plans that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management finalized within the past year: those associated with the Miles City, North Dakota and Central Yukon, Alaska, offices. All three joint resolutions were introduced in mid-July.

Republicans used the 1996 Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress a limited amount of time - usually 60 legislative days - to disapprove rules recently issued by federal agencies. If Congress passes the resolutions, the law prevents agencies from issuing new rules that are “substantially the same.”

Montana Rep. Troy Downing sponsored House Joint Resolution 104, which would nullify a Miles City Field Office RMP amendment issued on Nov. 20 and open up more than 1,745,000 acres of BLM land in eastern Montana to coal leasing.

During his testimony, Downing blamed President Joe Biden for “waging war on American energy,” and accused Biden of pushing coal mines and coal-fired power plants “to the brink of collapse.” Downing said the BLM amendment would have eliminated access to 30% of the nation’s coal reserves even though “the vast majority of Americans rely on coal for part of their electricity.”

“(This amendment) was the heavy hand of big government crushing an entire industry in the name of a radical green new deal agenda. It was the inevitable result of an anti-human, America-last ideology that has been knocked on its heels in the wake of President Trump’s election,” Downing said. “I am thankful we have the chance to reverse this rule before any more permanent damage could be done.”

The decline of coal started before Biden took office. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the proportion of U.S. electricity produced using coal has steadily decreased since 2007 due to market forces. Most coal-fired power plants are aging out, so they’re costly to run. Meanwhile, natural gas and renewable energy are getting cheaper. In addition, as climate change effects worsen, more consumers are concerned about carbon emissions and are demanding electricity from greener energy sources, limiting the kind of electricity producers can sell. For example, Puget Sound Energy of Washington state sold its share of the Colstrip power plant in 2024 in order to divest from coal.

Montana is one of only 11 states still using coal as a primary energy source, so many Montanans do depend on coal for some of their electricity. For example, on any summer day, NorthWestern Energy uses coal power for one-third to one-half of the electricity it produces, while the rest comes from wind, solar and hydropower energy.

But very little of the coal mined in Montana goes to the Colstrip power plants or anywhere else in the nation. According to the Montana Department of Commerce, in 2021, Signal Peak Energy shipped 95% of the coal mined in its Signal Peak Mine to markets in the Pacific, including Japan and South Korea. So limiting coal leases would have little effect on national energy production.

The other two joint resolutions would 1) negate the North Dakota RMP issued on Jan. 8 that limited oil and gas development on lands with low potential and limited coal leasing to lands within 4 miles of existing coal mines; and 2) negate the Central Yukon RMP issued on Nov. 12 that designated 21 areas of critical environmental concern and research natural areas totaling more than 3.6 million acres that wouldn’t be open to extraction.

Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo., questioned why Downing and the other resolution sponsors felt the need to use the Congressional Review Act - “do a CRA” - when they could just ask Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the former governor of North Dakota, to order the BLM reconsider the resource management plans. Neguse said the RMPs and their amendments each went through an extensive public process where all interested parties could weigh in, and that could be repeated if it’s really what the American people want. But a CRA side-steps the public process.

Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., who led the resolution proponents, said "the RMPs had no kind of balance" he’d ever seen because they lock lands away from mining opportunities.

“It’s necessary to do a CRA because the previous administration issued bad resource management plans. Had they not issued bad resource management plans, we wouldn’t be here today,” Westerman said. “If Congress passes this law, then another administration can’t go back and put it in place.”

Rep. Pete Stauber, R-Minn., agreed, saying the Biden administration tried to “shut down responsible mining in northern Minnesota, home to the largest copper-nickel find in the entire world.” Stauber was referring to the mining ban placed on the Superior National Forest, which is adjacent to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Copper-nickel mining could end up leaching heavy metals into the Boundary Waters.

“These resolutions will prevent future anti-American energy administrations from taking action in the future,” Stauber said. “I have a suspicion there might be several more (CRAs) coming in the near future because of the disastrous decisions from the prior administration.”

Several Republicans mentioned that the resolutions align with President Donald Trump’s executive orders to reinvigorate “America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry” and unleash American energy.

Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Ore., said the BLM has to balance many aspects, including wildlife, watersheds, recreation and resource management, not just coal or oil and gas. RMPs also have to go through tribal consultation to get tribal approval. But Republicans want to avoid all that and “hand things over to Big Oil and Big Coal,” Huffman said. However, the CRAs could have repercussions that Republicans haven’t considered.

“If these CRAs are signed into law, the validity of every single permit, lease and federal approval that’s been issued based on one of these RMPs would suddenly be called into question and subject to litigation,” Huffman said. “Let’s not continue this race to the bottom.”

In Montana, Annita Lucchesi, Cheyenne tribal member from eastern Montana, posted her thoughts about Downing’s CRA on Tuesday before the House vote.

“In the case of the Miles City RMP, the plans made sure that coal mining wouldn’t threaten more than 8,000 acres of watersheds where we get our drinking water and a million acres of big game habitat that are culturally significant to Indigenous Peoples. These were proposals that were carefully crafted with plenty of public input to safeguard the health of the land,” Lucchesi wrote in a blog post. “We are already breathing in a toxic mess of lead, arsenic, and mercury thanks to the existing coal industry – we need to let the folks breathing that air have a seat at the table and be heard on whether and how we continue to invest in extractive industries on public lands.”

At 9 p.m. EDT, the House passed the Montana resolution by a vote of 211-208, the Alaska resolution passed 215-210, and the North Dakota resolution passed 215-211. Only one Republican, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Penn., voted against the resolutions. Montana’s representatives voted in favor.

The resolutions now move to the Senate, which has 30 days to complete its vote, otherwise hearings have to be held.

“It’s not just wildlife habitat and hunting and fishing access at risk here; it’s all decisions made at the local level,” said Frank Szollosi, Montana Wildlife Federation executive director. “At a time when Montana’s public lands are facing numerous threats, land managers need flexibility and tools to respond, not more interference from Washington.”

In 2019, under the direction of Interior Sec. David Berhhardt and acting BLM director William Perry Pendley, both the Miles City and Missoula BLM field offices produced resource management plans that opened up many more areas to logging, mining and oil and gas drilling, even though a majority of public comments opposed many aspects. For example, the Miles City plan opened up 95% of Lewistown lands to oil and gas leases.

Pendley was an attorney for the oil and gas industry and former president of the conservative law firm Mountain States Legal Foundation. Local groups accused the BLM of abandoning its multiple-use mandate in favor of resource extraction. In 2020, the courts determined the RMPs were invalid because Pendley was never confirmed as director so his signature on the plans was no good. The BLM was told to develop new plans for the Missoula and Miles City offices.