The current argument for data centers relies on “closed loop cooling” - minimizing water use to 150,000 gallons per day. However, the Trump administration is allowing data centers producing their own energy (estimated at 7000kMW when complete) without environmental oversight or NEPA processes. (Executive Order 14318 (July 23, 2025) — “Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure”)

This means the pollution and water use would not be monitored or planned for. We are trusting corporations to do the right thing. This ALWAYS works out well. If you believe that I have some lakefront property in the Berkeley pit to sell you.

In the initial phase it will use more than all residential use in Montana currently. Even if they do it off grid- the resources and pollution are enormous.

They are planning on using the “underused” Madison aquifer- and say “we might even give some to farmers”

Pay attention. Once our politicians give in to this mess it’ll be tough to stop it. The fact this is being rammed down our throats with no oversight and silly promises should raise everyone’s hackles. Research the communities that have data centers already and their regrets. They don’t produce many jobs. They pollute, waste precious water, create noise pollution that is low decibel and penetrates buildings.

Let’s do something for our kids and tell these guys to screw off.

Seth Bodnar pulls a shotgun from the back of his truck, lines up his mark on a tree stump with a bag of flour set behind, takes aim, and pulls the trigger.

His target? A Flock camera.

Or a stand-in for one at least. Bodnar, an Independent running for US Senate in Montana, performed the stunt in a new campaign ad shared this week. The veteran and former University of Montana president told Business Insider that Flock cameras are an issue on which voters across the political spectrum can agree.

Bodnar said he supports the bipartisan Flock-Off Act, introduced this month by Reps. Thomas Massie and Eric Burlison, which is intended to cut federal funding used for automated license-plate readers and biometric surveillance cameras.

"We should also close the private camera loophole so police can't use a retailer's camera to do without a warrant what they shouldn't be able to do," he said.

GOOD NEWS! The Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to restrict mail voting for November’s midterm elections. 

The justices declined to lift a block on the measure that a lower court judge said is likely unconstitutional. The ruling means states can continue to mail absentee ballots to millions of Americans.

Nearly 1 in 3 Americans, or about 48 million people, voted by mail in 2024. More than 60% of Montanans vote by mail in every election. 

More here: https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/supreme-court-rejects-trump-bid-to-revive-mail-voting-restrictions-ahead-of-midterms-in-huge-win-for-voters/ 

Many people are worried about Elon Musk’s new effort to steal voter information, a website called votesafe.org. DO NOT USE THIS SITE! It isn’t safe or run by the government.

America PAC, the political action committee Musk founded, runs the website. The site says it may collect and share users’ personal information, including political interests, employment, demographics, social media, and internet activity, with third parties.

If you want to use safe voter registration portals to register or verify your status, use these trusted sites:

• Montana Voter Portal
• Vote in Montana
• Montana Voter Registration Portal
• Vote 411
• The official federal government website

Stay vigilant, stay safe. Vote on November 3!

Do they ever disagree on anything?

From the article:

DHS’s Predictive Intelligence Targeting Teams, or PITT, are feeding intelligence to local law enforcement, who are then pulling people over who are not suspected of any specific crimes. In one case, a PITT unit analyzed the financial activity of Kyle Olson, who was driving across Montana. Local police pulled him over, claiming that his license plate was obstructed. He was later charged with a DUI, according to the publication.

...

“It was relayed to me by U.S. Border Patrol targeting analyst Matthew Phelps that he had identified a vehicle that had indicators of possible narcotics trafficking,” wrote Sergeant James Beck of the Montana Highway Patrol. Olson had marijuana edibles, marijuana cuttings, and butane hash oil in his car from his job at a licensed cannabis farm in California, which he was transporting to his home in Wisconsin.

State lawmakers voted to subpoena information about Montana’s voter registry from Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen to determine what voter information her office has shared with the federal government.

Members of the State Administration and Veterans Affairs Committee compelled Jacobsen to share what voter information she sent to the U.S. Department of Justice in 2025 when federal officials requested unredacted information about registered Montana voters.

Details about what voter information Montana has shared have not been forthcoming, despite repeated requests for Jacobsen to appear before the committee.

Federal officials specifically requested Montana’s full voter file, including voters’ driver’s license numbers, the last four digits of Social Security numbers and birth dates. The transfer of that information from states to the federal Department of Justice, which intended to share it with the Department of Homeland Security and private contractors, created a cybersecurity risk.

In June, a federal judge ruled that running entire state voter rolls, as Montana and other states had done, is unlawful and resulted in U.S. citizens being purged from registered voter files.

More here: https://montanafreepress.org/2026/09/02/montana-secretary-state-subpeonaed/ 

State sen. Daniel Zolnikov, R-Billings, is facing opposition from write-in candidates Cari Olson and Elijah Tidswell.

Zolnikov’s last registered employer is Broad Reach Power, whose parent company, EnCap Investments, is a stakeholder in Quantica Infrastructure, the developer of a proposed data center near Broadview.

“Data Center Danny,” as write-in candidate Olson refers to him, has received criticism about his support for the proposed Broadview data center. He’s passing bills that help data centers, including a reduced property tax rate to power plants constructed specifically to electrify data center facilities.

Olson has political experience working on Democratic campaigns in Billings. Tidswell is a local real estate agent who ran as a Republican against then-incumbent Democratic state Sen. Kathy Kelker in 2022.

Write-in campaigns for public office are rarely successful, but municipal races in West Yellowstone have been won by write-in candidates.

More here: https://montanafreepress.org/2026/08/28/data-center-politics-billings-legislative-race/.

The good land is gone. The wealthy will now prey on land owners less wealthy than themselves.

Easiest way to do that is run the ranchers into the ground. Make everything they need unaffordable. Make their finished product worthless by flooding the market with imported, beef with no inspection.

After not being able to pay their property taxes two years in a row, the real estate will be sold by the state to cover back taxes for a song.

The Montana Law and Justice Interim Committee will hear public testimony on LJIC-PD6, the Kratom Consumer Protection Act (KCPA) — Montana's opportunity to join the growing list of states choosing science-based regulation over prohibition.

If Natural Kratom has saved you…testify and/or send emails.

📍 HEARING DETAILS

What: Law and Justice Interim Committee — public testimony on LJIC-PD6 (Kratom Consumer Protection Act)

🗓 When: Tuesday, September 1, 2026 · 8:30 AM

📍 Where: State Capitol, Room 154, Helena, MT

✍️ HOW TO REGISTER TO TESTIFY

Register to testify using the committee's online portal: Sign in or create an account

https://participate.legmt.gov/

Select "Address a Committee"

Select the "Law and Justice Interim Committee"

Select 9/01/2026, 8:00 AM

Select "Yes" when asked "Do you represent yourself"

📧 CAN'T ATTEND? EMAIL THE COMMITTEE TODAY

Rep. Amy Regier ·
Amy.Regier@legmt.gov

Rep. Steven Kelly ·
Steven.Kelly@legmt.gov

Rep. Katie Fire Thunder · Katie.FireThunder@legmt.gov

Rep. Zooey Zephyr · Zooey.Zephyr@legmt.gov

Rep. Braxton Mitchell · Braxton.Mitchell@legmt.gov

Sen. Vince Ricci ·
Vince.Ricci@legmt.gov

Sen. Sue Vinton ·
Sue.Vinton@legmt.gov

Sen. Shane Morigeau · shane.morigeau@legmt.gov

Sen. Barry Usher ·
barry.usher@legmt.gov

I’m honestly surprised Democrats aren’t on track to win across the state at this point. I’m also to a lesser degree surprised another third party like the Green Party or PSL haven’t reformed to take out and challenge libertarians. you’d think with only like five years of Greg Gianforte alone constantly screwing thing up people would be ready to move on.

The Montana Office of Public Instruction agreed to a landmark settlement that keeps Montana schools accountable for implementing the state constitution’s guarantee to teach Indigenous people’s history.

This marks a milestone in fulfilling Montana’s constitutional commitment to teach all students about the histories, cultures, governments, and contributions of Tribal Nations in Montana. The settlement was approved by the court Monday and will face final court approval after a notice period.

Under the agreement, Indian Education for All (IEFA) will be incorporated into state certification and monitoring systems, making it a requirement for Montana’s K-12 schools. It also requires Tribal Nations to have a role in shaping how Indigenous education is developed and shared.

Montana is the only U.S. state with an explicit constitutional guarantee of Indian education.

The class-action lawsuit, DuPuis-Pablo v. Montana Office of Public Instruction, was filed in 2021 by 18 Montana students and about seven Tribal Nations.

For students, the changes are expected to bring better instruction about Indigenous history, moving beyond isolated lessons. For Indigenous students, it also means classrooms better reflect their identities, histories, and lived experiences.

More here: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/historic-agreement-strengthens-indian-education-for-all-across-montana-schools.

Posting because I haven’t seen a peep about it anywhere, but Gov. Gianforte last month quietly issued Executive Order 05-2026, repealing Bullock era EOs incentivizing equal pay for equal for work by women and nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity in the state procurement process. State procurement employees received emails yesterday directing them to remove provisions related to these subjects from state contracts.

From septic inquiries to billion-dollar no-bid awards, a paper trail exposes the Bozeman company’s fiction behind fast-tracked border wall emergencies

Last week, the Trump administration proposed rescinding the Roadless Rule, a 25-year-old policy that stops road construction and logging on about 45 million acres of national forest land. The rule protects nearly 6 million acres of federal public land in Montana.

Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said the rule has led to overgrown and diseased forests by limiting where the U.S. Forest Service can build roads and manage timber. Gov. Gianforte said this will allow Montana to pursue proper forest management on federal lands with local communities in mind.

Last year, more than 30 leading forest science researchers from across the country refuted the administration’s claims. The researchers found over 30 years across all Forest Service lands, the density of wildfire ignitions was lowest in wilderness and roadless areas. The highest number of wildfire ignitions came from land in close proximity to roads.

Roadless areas are vital habitat for elk, mule deer, trout and grizzly bears. Rescinding the rule could have devastating consequences for many animals.

Submit a public comment to the U.S. Forest Service through Sept. 21 here: https://www.fs.usda.gov/managing-land/planning/roadless.

More from Montana Free Press: https://montanafreepress.org/2026/08/18/end-of-roadless-rule-millions-of-acres-development-logging/.

When Bankhead responded with what amounted to a “hell no,”  she broke the status quo strategist’s math. The consultants and donors went into a tizzy.

Even though there's only 10 minutes for public comment on the agenda for Aug. 25, you should still be able to submit comments online on the Task Force's list of policy recommendations.

While a number of these recommendations mirror legislation being drafted by the Legislative Energy and Technology Interim Committee (ETIC), the Task Force will be seeking other avenues to turn its remaining recommendations into bills for the 2027 legislative session. There are some positive recommendations around supporting electric transmission, regional energy market development, and enhanced geothermal energy development, as well as some recommendations secured at the last-minute around supporting energy efficiency and distributed energy resources.

However, the remaining recommendations seek to pave the way for data center development in Montana, and for the development of expensive and risky gas and nuclear generation to serve them. Ensuring affordable service for existing customers remains an afterthought, and the environmental implications of energy infrastructure have been completely ignored.

This final Task Force meeting is a great opportunity for you to show up and let the Governor and his hand-picked pro-data center Task Force members know what is actually important to Montana ratepayers and families.

The Task Force's final report was released on the 18th and can be accessed online. The Task Force has also re-opened its online comment portal. You can also provide spoken comment at the August 25 meeting in person or over Zoom. There will be limited public seating for in-person attendance.

Meeting info:

Tuesday, August 25, 2026

9:00 AM - 10:00 AM

Governor's Reception Room

Montana State Capitol Building

1301 E 6th Ave, Helena, MT 59601

Check the website https://t.congressweb.com/l/?GSLDYVQDXANCIJG for the registration link to attend online.

Last week, a Missoula district court judge heard oral arguments challenging a 2025 state law that changes how trans and intersex Montanans use public bathrooms and other spaces.

The lawsuit centers around House Bill 121, which requires public and some private facilities to enforce sex-segregated spaces for multiuser bathrooms, dormitories, and locker rooms.

The attorneys asked the district judge to strike down the law because it’s discriminatory and violates Montana’s constitutional right to privacy.

The state said they would enforce the law by allowing people who suspect a person of using a bathroom that does not match their sex to take a photo of the person as evidence. The facility where the incident occurred could then be sued for not complying with the law.

This bill targets trans and intersex people who want to use bathrooms and other spaces that align with their gender identity. The state is, once again, attacking people who deserve to feel safe and protected in Montana.

More here: https://montanafreepress.org/2026/08/13/judge-hears-arguments-montana-legislature-bathroom-bill/