HELENA — Energy needs continue to grow in the Treasure State and on the national level. Industry leaders say there are a number of contributing factors including population growth and the growing tech industry.

On Tuesday, Governor Greg Gianforte hosted an Energy Roundtable in Helena to discuss hurdles faced in Montana’s energy sector, potential solutions and look to the future. The governor was joined by business leaders, large energy consumers and suppliers, community leaders and lawmakers.

“With rising demand on our power grid, we must do more to unleash American energy production in the United States,” Gianforte said. “By bringing together policymakers, the private sector, public utilities, and other energy leaders, I’m optimistic that we can make it easier to produce American-made energy in Montana to benefit consumers and create more good-paying jobs.”

Participants in the round table discussed the need for reliable and affordable energy, improving the regulatory environment both on the federal and local levels and expanding transmission capacity.

State Senator Daniel Zolnikov, R-Billings, will chair the Senate Energy and Telecommunications Committee this legislative session. At the meeting, he said he is working on legislation aimed at improving the amount of power that can be transferred through Montana’s grid.

“Looking for a way to build transmission in Montana with proper oversight but in a timely manner. I think we’ve attempted to hit all three of those appropriately. Transmission is the big conversation in energy across the country right now,” Zolnikov told MTN.

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Montana is a net energy exporter supplying electricity to other states and Canada. Electrical generation in the state comes mainly from coal (45%), hydroelectric (30%), wind (18%) and natural gas (4%). According to the roundtable participants, there continues to be an increased demand each year for Montana energy both on a national level and in-state.

“We’re hearing from businesses around the state is that some point in the next 10 years or so we’re going to have real serious challenges, which not only challenge our liability but it also challenges our economic growth opportunities in the state,” said Montana Chamber of Commerce President Todd O’Hair.

Roundtable participants say there are a couple of reasons for the jump in energy demand, including population growth, inflation and more investments in the tech industry like data centers.

According to a recent report from the Western Electricity Coordinating Council, the growth in electricity demand for data centers is projected to grow by 20 percent in the next ten years. The same report projected a 9 percent increase in demand only two years ago.

Data centers are a multi-billion dollar industry seeing record growth in the United States. A big push for that growth is coming from more investments in A.I. companies like ChatCPT. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, data centers consume 10 to 50 times the energy per floor space of a typical commercial office space.

On Monday, NorthWestern Energy announced it signed a letter of intent to provide energy services for a developer planning new data centers in Montana. The energy service load is expected to be a minimum of 50 megawatts, beginning in 2027, with growth to 250 megawatts or more by 2029.

Another topic for discussion was the great potential Montana has for energy growth given geographically where the state is located and the abundance of natural resources in the Treasure State.

“There’s a big opportunity here for the State of Montana. It sits at an intersection of multiple markets so it can both generate and export, but also import when it needs low-cost reliable power,” said Berkshire Hathaway Energy CEO Ed Rihn.

This year the Gianforte Administration has announced several investments into Montana’s energy grid, including $700 million for the North Plains Connector Interregional Innovation project and a $1 billion investment at the Clearwater Wind Energy Center outside of Miles City.

HELENA, Mont. — A state judge in Montana has temporarily blocked policies that prevented transgender people from changing the sex designation on their birth certificates and driver’s licenses.

District Judge Mike Menahan issued his order Monday, blocking the rule while the case moves through the courts.

Menahan said it was not necessary at this point in the litigation to determine whether transgender Montanans constitute a special class on the basis of their transgender status, but he disagreed with the state’s argument that discrimination on the basis of transgender status is not discrimination on the basis of sex.

“If the challenged state actions discriminate against transgender individuals on the basis of their transgender status, they also necessarily discriminate on the basis of sex,” he wrote.

The case was filed in April by two transgender women on behalf of themselves and others who have been unable to obtain documents “that accurately reflect their sex,” the complaint said.

One rule in the state blocks transgender people born in Montana from changing the sex designation on their birth certificate. Another policy prevents transgender residents from changing the sex on their driver’s licenses without an amended birth certificate — which they can’t obtain if they were born in Montana.

Plaintiff Jessica Kalarchik, who was born in Montana, said in a statement Tuesday that she was frustrated that while “being able to live my life openly as the woman I know myself to be,” Montana “wants me to carry around a birth certificate that incorrectly lists my sex as male.”

Birth certificates and driver’s licenses are needed to apply for a marriage license, a passport, to vote or even to buy a hunting license, Alex Rate, legal counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana, argued last month. Each time a transgender person is required to produce a document that does not accurately reflect their sex, they are forced to “out” themselves as transgender.

The state had argued that sex is binary, either male or female, and that being transgender is not a protected class of people who could have their constitutional rights to privacy violated.

“The right to privacy does not include a right to replace an objective fact of biological sex on a government document,” Assistant Attorney General Alwyn Lansing argued for the state.

The state attorney general’s office, which oversees the motor vehicle division, and state health department, which issues birth certificates, did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.

The hearing was the latest volley in a series of laws, rules and legal challenges over efforts by Republicans in Montana and many other states to limit the rights of transgender residents. The state has used various justifications in banning changes to identifying documents, including needing accurate statistical records or saying someone’s biological sex cannot be changed even though someone’s gender identity can.

“The state cannot articulate any legitimate interest in restricting access to accurate identity documents, much less a compelling one,” Rate said during the hearing.

In late 2017, under Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock, the state health department implemented a rule allowing people to change the sex on their birth certificate by signing an affidavit.

In 2021, Montana’s Republican-controlled Legislature and Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte implemented a law saying transgender people could not change the sex on their birth certificate without having undergone surgery. That law was declared unconstitutionally vague because it did not specify what surgery was required. The state was ordered to return to the 2017 rule.

However, in response, the health department — now under Republican leadership — passed a rule saying nobody can change the sex on their birth certificate unless it was to fix a clerical error.

Montana’s Legislature in 2023 passed a law defining the word “sex” in state law as being only male or female and based upon a person’s sex assigned at birth. That law defining “sex” was overturned as unconstitutional because its title did not accurately explain its purpose, but the ACLU argues the state is still using it to set policy with regard to driver’s licenses.

The ACLU asked Judge Menahan to temporarily block the rule and policy and order the state to restore the 2017 rule that allowed transgender people to change the sex designation on their birth certificate by filing an affidavit.

Menahan’s order blocked the 2022 health department rule on birth certificates and the motor vehicle division policy that prevented people from changing the sex on their driver’s license without an amended birth certificate. He also blocked the bill that defined sex as only male or female as it applied to birth certificates and driver’s licenses.

Montana is one of seven states that did not allow people to change the sex on their birth certificate. Twenty-five states do allow it, including 15 that offer an option to list male, female or X. A dozen states allow birth certificate changes following gender-affirming surgical procedures, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an advocacy and information organization.

Thirty states allow people to change their sex on their driver’s license. Montana is among 16 states with what the Movement Advancement Project calls a “burdensome process.” Four states do not allow a person to change their sex on their driver’s license.

A proposal to put nearly 33,000 acres of working forestland in northwest Montana into a conservation easement has cleared its last major hurdle.

In a 3-1 vote on Monday, the Montana Land Board adopted language amending an agreement between timber company Green Diamond and Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks that closes the book on a conservation project that took four years and nearly $40 million to finalize.

The Montana Great Outdoors Conservation Easement is located between Kalispell and Libby and encompasses parts of the Salish and Cabinet mountains. The roughly 33,000 acres of land will be protected from development to support wildlife habitat and “key landscape connectivity,” according to FWP.

An FWP memo on the project says the easement also provides “permanent free public recreation access” to the enrolled lands while sustaining their use as a working forest.

The U.S. Forest Service’s Montana Forest Legacy Program is putting $20 million toward the easement. Habitat Montana, a fund administered by FWP, is contributing $1.5 million, and the Trust for Public Lands coordinated another $4.2 million of financial support for the project. Finally, Green Diamond is donating about $14 million of the land’s value.

The easement is perpetual, meaning the terms of the agreement will remain in effect indefinitely, even if Green Diamond later sells the land.

In addition to supporting long-term timber harvest, the easement will confer tax benefits to Green Diamond, which owns and manages working forests in nine states throughout the southern and western U.S. According to a FAQ on the easement, Green Diamond will continue to pay local property taxes in Lincoln, Sanders and Flathead counties once the easement is recorded.

The easement faced a tumultuous path to adoption. When the Land Board first voted on it in October, WRH Nevada Properties, which owns the mineral estate beneath approximately half of the 33,000 acres, argued that the easement jeopardized its ability to develop the subsurface mineral estate.

Peter Scott, an attorney representing WRH and Citizens for Balanced Use, argued before the Land Board on Oct. 21 that the board would be ill-advised to authorize the easement while a lawsuit over it is pending, and given that ground-disturbing activities are “not compatible” with the Montana Forest Legacy Program’s purpose.

“The folks that fund mineral exploration are not looking for conservation easements as part of their program,” Scott said. “In fact, they’re leaving and taking their mineral exploration money elsewhere. From their standpoint, Montana is not open for business in the context of mineral exploration.”

To help alleviate that concern, the board voted in October to draft language recognizing its intention to protect the mineral rights holders’ ability to access and develop their mineral rights within the easement’s bounds.

The board’s 3-1 vote effectively alters the easement to read that the mineral rights holders “shall not be infringed upon.” The mineral rights holder will retain the ability to “enter and use the [conserved land] for exploration, recovery and development of the minerals consistent with state law,” per the language adopted by the board.

State Superintendent and Land Board member Elsie Arntzen opposed a final vote on the easement, arguing that more discussion is needed and indicating that the state Legislature, which is set to gavel in for its biennial session next month, may be inclined to weigh in. She sought to postpone final action until at least the spring, a delay Gov. Greg Gianforte did not support for fear it would compromise the Forest Service’s $20 million contribution to the easement.

“The staff worked with all of the concerned parties to get language that was agreeable. For us to make additional changes here, without consultation with all of the parties, would put us in a difficult position,” Gianforte said, adding that Arntzen had effectively missed her window to oppose the easement writ large.

“At this point, the easement has been approved, subject to this language,” Gianforte continued. “I feel a strong compunction to honor the local consensus which has been built around this, which I think is reflected in this modified language.”

Arntzen also attempted to issue a “no” vote by proxy for Montana Attorney General and Land Board member Austin Knudsen. Gianforte, who chairs the Land Board, said only members who are actively present can vote.

Gianforte also struck down an amendment offered by Secretary of State and Land Board member Christi Jacobsen to make the easement subject to a 99-year term rather than perpetual.

The easement “has been granted, has been finalized,” Gianforte said. “So I would rule your amendment out of order.”

A variety of conservation and forestry-oriented organizations support the easement, arguing that it contributes to conservation and recreational objectives, and supports local economies reliant on forestry by facilitating access to a long-term timber supply. Those groups include Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Montana Wildlife Federation, Trust for Public Land, Montana Wood Products Association, Montana Logging Association,Stimson Lumber and FH Stoltze Land & Lumber. 

A trio of current and former elected officials opposed the easement in a letter to the Land Board, arguing that more due diligence should have been done to assess the prevalence of subsurface minerals and communicate with WRH about the project. A letter signed by Rep. Steve Gunderson, R-Libby; Sen. Dan Bartel, R-Lewistown; and Kerry White, a former state representative from Bozeman who now leads Citizens for Balanced Use, a nearly 20-year-old nonprofit that calls for more motorized recreation and resource development on public land.

The second stage of the Montana Great Outdoors Conservation Easement is still in development. It’s estimated to top 52,000 acres to the west and south of the Lost Trail National Wildlife Refuge.