Montana
'Pay to pollute' plan? Montanans have been there, done that • Daily Montanan
Ever since Congress enacted the Superfund law nearly half a century ago, the phrase “polluter pays” has meant that individuals corporations, or entities responsible for polluting the environment will be held liable for the costs to clean up their toxic disasters.
But comes now president-elect Donald Trump’s promise that “polluter pays” has an entirely different meaning — and one that’s fraught with creating foreseeable and avoidable environmental disasters primarily by excluding the public from agency permits and approvals.
As he posted to Truth Social this week: “Any person or company investing ONE BILLION DOLLARS, OR MORE, in the United States of America, will receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental approvals. GET READY TO ROCK!!!”
That choice of words is pretty ironic given the largest Superfund site in the nation is located right here in good old Butte, Montana — and the toxic pollution that not only plagues the town, but 100 miles of the Clark Fork River, came from mining rock and spewing the resulting poisons on the land, air and water.
Equally ironic and tragic is the fact that since Superfund’s enactment Butte, Anaconda, and the 100 miles of the Upper Clark Fork River have seen hundreds of millions of dollars spent trying to remediate (not clean up and reclaim) the vast scope of the pollution.
How did it happen? Almost exactly like Trump’s incredibly ignorant offer that if you pay enough, you can buy government approval to pollute at will. Only here, it happened because the Copper Kings “paid to pollute” through buying, bribing, threatening, and controlling the legislature, judges, sheriffs, and local and state government officials.
The old Butte joke at the legislature back then was to ask new legislators if “they got their envelope?”
Of course, they’d ask, “What envelope?”
And the old legislators would say “the one with the money from The Company” – because in fact, the Anaconda Company used to toss envelopes full of cash through the transom windows of the hotel rooms where legislators stayed in downtown Helena.
No problem with pesky laws when you pay to pollute. The Copper Kings got the gold, but Butte and Montana got the shaft and pit and poisoned river. They fled with their fortunes, but here we are, 40+ years into Superfund activities with a projected “end” of — get this — 2038!
I doubt Trump has ever been to Butte to admire the Berkeley Pit’s 50 billion gallons of toxic water — which will never be “cleaned up.” He likely hasn’t seen the Opportunity Ponds, either, where millions of tons of toxic sediment removed from behind the failing Milltown Dam are now stored in the floodplain with groundwater only a foot (if that) below the surface.
Nor, I suspect, has he ever been to Love Canal where unsuspecting residents were poisoned by buried chemical wastes in an incident so horrific it gave birth to the Superfund law because the culprits thought they could get away with scraping some dirt over the deadly toxins and selling it as a subdivision.
There’s much wisdom in the old saying “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” And indeed, in Montana, the idea of “pay to pollute” is all too familiar and the “cure” remains both incredibly expensive and illusive.
Before Trump goes through with his incredibly ill-conceived and shortsighted plan, maybe he ought to take a trip to Butte and see the results of “pay to pollute” — because here in Montana, we’ve been there and done that.
WASHINGTON ― Montana Republican Senate nominee Kurt Alme, who previously served as his state’s U.S. attorney, cut a plea deal in 2020 that allowed a tribal police officer who sexually abused a 6-year-old girl to serve less than a year in prison and avoid being registered as a sex offender.
Alme, who has President Donald Trump’s backing in his bid for Senate, served as Montana’s U.S. attorney in two stints. Trump appointed him both times; Alme served in the role from September 2017 through December 2020, and then again from March 2025 through March 2026.
Alme oversaw the case of Mychal Thomas Damon, who was indicted in June 2019 by a grand jury on one count of abusive sexual contact with an individual under 12, which carries a maximum punishment of a lifetime in prison, a $250,000 fine and no less than five years to a lifetime of supervised release. The average sentence for this crime is less severe, but still significant: 62 months in prison, no fine and 143 months of supervised release, based on an analysis of 2025 data provided by the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
Damon, 28, had admitted he touched the 6-year-old’s genitals. But in February 2020, Alme’s office filed a plea deal in his case that reduced his charge to felony child abuse.
The changes in the plea deal raised the alleged age of the victim from below 12 to below 14, stripped out the language of sexual intent and moved the offense out of the federal sex crime framework, meaning Damon would no longer be required to register as a sex offender. It jointly recommended Damon be sentenced to the time he’d already served of 324 days, and required only a sex offender evaluation. Alme’s name appears on the bottom of the document, along with a signature by his assistant U.S. attorney, Cassady Adams.
In June, Alme filed a sentencing memorandum that described Damon’s conduct, which included details of him touching the child’s vagina with skin-to-skin contact, and the adverse effect it had on her mental health. Local reporting at the time said the victim had told a therapist “Mychal touched me” and hurt her by putting his fingers in her “hoo hoo.”
Ten days later, Alme announced Damon was being sentenced to time served of 324 days and two years of supervised release. As of June 2026, Damon is not listed in the national sex offender registry or in Montana’s Sexual or Violent Offender Registry.
It’s not clear why Alme reduced the charges against Damon as significantly as he did. During part of his tenure as U.S. attorney, his office declined 64% of sexual assault cases. He conceded in a 2019 interview that this “is something that has to be worked on,” and noted that a lot of these cases are declined due to “weak or insufficient evidence.”
Asked what happened in Damon’s case, an Alme campaign spokesman on Thursday lashed out at unnamed Democrats for trying to make him look bad.
“Kurt’s liberal opponents are twisting the facts to manufacture a fake narrative that exploits crimes against women and children,” said Alme’s spokesperson. “Department of Justice policy required defendants to plead to the most serious charge readily provable from the evidence. Kurt strongly supported the Multi-Disciplinary Teams on our Native American reservations, led by his office, to support investigations of crimes against children and to support victims.”
His spokesperson also pushed back on the idea that Alme unreasonably declined a large number of sexual assault cases during his tenure as U.S. attorney.
“Kurt’s office prosecuted every viable sexual abuse felony referred to it and pursued the most serious charge readily provable from the evidence,” the spokesperson said. “Many ‘declined’ cases were to allow more appropriate tribal prosecutions ― they were not dropped. Kurt will bring his years of experience prosecuting criminals and working with the Sexual Assault Response Teams on our Native American reservations to the U.S. Senate to strengthen investigations, support victims, and better protect women and children.”
The campaign pointed HuffPost to a 2010 report by the Government Accountability Office that found the most common reason for U.S. attorney’s offices to decline sexual abuse cases referred in from Indian country was “weak or insufficient admissible evidence.” It also highlighted statements of support for Alme in an October 2025 press release by Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), when he celebrated Alme being confirmed as U.S. attorney.
Alme is currently running for Daines’ Senate seat, and Daines went out of his way to clear the path for him. In a stunning and orchestrated maneuver, the two-term senator in March abruptly withdrew from reelection as Alme filed to run for his seat, minutes before the state’s filing period closed. Daines’ last-minute change-up was an effort to block potential Democrats or any major Republican challenger from jumping into an open Senate race.
Alme is taking on Democrat Alani Bankhead and independent candidate Seth Bodnar in the November election. Bankhead and Bodner have been duking it out for weeks, with each appealing to different factions of the Democratic party and calling on the other to drop out.
Bankhead, a retired Air Force officer, unexpectedly won the Democratic primary earlier this month, boosted by grassroots supporters and more than $2.5 million in outside money from a progressive veterans’ PAC. But Bodnar, a former University of Montana president who did not appear on the primary ballot, has bipartisan endorsements from prominent establishment figures, including former Democratic Sen. Jon Tester and former Republican Gov. Marc Racicot. He’s also significantly outraised Bankhead and Alme.
This Senate seat is rated “solid Republican” by the nonpartisan Cook’s Political Report, meaning Alme is well-positioned to win the general election. But this race would be more competitive if Bodner and Alme were going head to head, without Bankhead in the running.
Where Khloe Kardashian Stands With Ex French Montana More Than 10 Years After Breakup
French Montana is done keeping up with reality TV.
In fact, he only agreed to appear on Keeping Up With The Kardashians and Kourtney & Khloé Take the Hamptons over a decade ago as a favor to then-girlfriend Khloe Kardashian.
“She said to get on the show,” he exclusively told E! News at the BET Awards on June 28. “And I got on the show. Shout out to Khloe.”
The “Ever Since U Left Me” rapper, who split with Kardashian in December 2014 after eight months of dating, said the experience was “fun” because her family kept it real.
“They filmed their real life,” he continued. “And we were part of something together that one time. So it felt great. It didn’t feel like work because they film what they do everyday.”
As for his future in reality TV, the 41-year-old said those days are over, shutting down any prospective offers with a simple, “Negative.”
Although the “Unforgettable” artist—whose real name is Karim Kharbouch—may not be returning to television anytime soon, he has no problem hanging out with his ex-girlfriend these days.
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