Lawsuit Challenges Feds’ Authorization of Bull Mountains Mine Expansion

Environmental groups on Tuesday filed a challenge to an expansion of the Bull Mountains coal mine in central Montana, arguing that the federal government has used a “sham” energy emergency to cut the public out of the environmental review process required by federal law. 

The Center for Biological Diversity and Montana Environmental Information Center wrote in their lawsuit that the mine has “devastated” the Bull Mountains’ ranching community near Roundup by dewatering groundwater resources and forcing ranchers off their land. 

In their 42-page filing, the plaintiffs argue that the Interior Department’s Office of Surface Mining rushed its environmental review to facilitate Signal Peak Energy’s access to 24 million tons of Bureau of Land Management-owned coal. Landowners frustrated by the mine’s impacts to the region’s land, water, wildlife and air quality say federal law requires a more rigorous study of the expansion’s ecological, social and economic effects.

The plaintiffs are asking a federal district court in Billings to nix the expansion until the federal government produces an environmental review that complies with the National Environmental Policy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.

Signal Peak has a longwall mining operation that requires a 10,000-pound machine to remove the Mammoth coal seam in miles-long panels. But the excavation of that subsurface material has created subsidence cracks in the earth, some of them several feet across, dozens of feet deep and hundreds of meters long.

“It was well known by both miners and regulators that a longwall mine would dewater the Bull Mountains, driving generational ranching families off their land to enrich three out-of-state corporations sending coal overseas,” Pat Thiele, a landowner in the Bull Mountains and member of the plaintiff organizations, wrote in a press release about the lawsuit. “Nobody with any authority cares.”

Signal Peak, which has operated the Bull Mountains Mine since 2008, did not respond to Montana Free Press’ request for comment on the litigation.

The expedited expansion is the product of an executive order President Donald Trump issued the first day of his second term that declared a “national energy emergency” and directed federal agencies to “identify and exercise any lawful emergency authorities” to facilitate the development of fossil fuels, uranium, critical minerals and geothermal heat. The order also asserts that selling energy resources to international allies helps the U.S. “compete with hostile foreign powers,” which will in turn “support international peace and security.”

A reconfiguration of NEPA followed, including an Interior Department directive that agencies such as the Office of Surface Mining and BLM turn around permitting decisions, which often take years, in just 28 days if requested by an applicant.

Federal regulators authorized the expansion of the Bull Mountains Mine under that new regulatory framework. On May 6, Signal Peak requested the expedited environmental review. Within a month, the Interior Department had released a final environmental impact statement and issued a record of decision authorizing the 247-acre expansion.

The vast majority of the coal extracted from the Bull Mountains Mine is bound for overseas markets including Japan and South Korea, according to the lawsuit. Plaintiffs argue that this fact, considered alongside the rise in domestic fossil fuel extraction and the Trump administration’s aversion to renewable energy resources such as wind and solar, throws the legitimacy of Trump’s energy emergency into question.

The plaintiffs also claim Signal Peak has a disconcerting record of flaunting federal environmental and worker-safety laws and that several of its former executives engaged in crimes ranging from cocaine trafficking and bribery to firearms violations. As such, the company should not be eligible for a fast-tracked review, they say.

“The Trump administration rubber-stamped an expansion for a mine with an alarming history,” Earthjustice attorney Shiloh Hernandez, who is representing the plaintiffs in the litigation, wrote in the release. “The sham energy emergency that this approval was based on does not exist, and even if it did, shipping coal overseas wouldn’t help to address it. The agency has again failed to faithfully follow the science, so we’ll see them in court.”

NEPA, the act passed by Congress in 1970 and signed into law by President Richard Nixon, requires federal agencies to take a “hard look” at environmental impacts associated with large federal land projects and use the “best available science” in its analysis. NEPA reviews often include information on endangered species habitat, anticipated shifts to water quantity and quality, an estimation of a project’s employment footprint, and a catalogue of potentially affected cultural and historical sites.

Signal Peak, which employs about 250 people, has pursued multiple avenues to facilitate its access to additional coal. Multiple lawsuits going back over a decade have thwarted those efforts. In 2023, a federal judge in Missoula blocked a 7,100-acre expansion on the grounds that the government had conducted an inadequate review of climate and water impacts. The mine responded by turning to state-owned coal within its footprint. 

Congress has also come to Signal Peak’s aid: Last May the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee tucked an 800-acre expansion of the mine the company had requested in 2020 into President Trump’s megabill, which also lowered coal royalty rates from 12.5 percent to 7 percent, reducing the revenue that federally owned coal generates for the nation’s coffers.