Montana
Tribes in Montana lose millions after USDA kills farm grants
HELENA, Mont. — Kim Paul, executive director of the Piikani Lodge Health Institute, a nonprofit on the Blackfeet Reservation that promotes health and well-being, saw the email notification flash across her computer screen as she was working late last week.
It was the U.S. Department of Agriculture saying a nearly $9 million grant contract with Piikani Lodge had been terminated.
“The U.S. Department of Agriculture has determined that awards under this program involved discriminatory preferences based on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and wasteful spending that did little to further lawful agricultural land purchases,” the USDA wrote.
Paul was stunned. Piikani Lodge had planned to use the grant to improve operations for Native and non-Native farmers and ranchers in the region. The nonprofit had already separately acquired 600 acres on the Blackfeet Reservation, and planned to use the USDA funds to build a training hub for food producers and support about 300 farmers and ranchers in Glacier and Pondera counties.
Paul said she became short of breath when she saw the email. She dreaded sharing the news with her team.
“It was horror,” she said. “The horror of losing stability for our community.”
Funded through the Biden-era American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, the Increasing Land, Capital and Market Access Program was designed to support “underserved” farmers and ranchers. It awarded about $300 million to 50 grantees in 2023. Forty-nine of those grants were terminated last week.
At least two additional projects in Montana were affected by the cancellations: a Chippewa Cree Tribe project to purchase land and train young farmers and ranchers how to manage it; and one run by South Dakota-based Four Bands Community Fund that would have trained and financially supported at least 25 low-income agricultural producers in North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana.
Montana-based awardees called the terminations “devastating.” They also say the grant cancellations were based on a false presumption that tribal initiatives fall under the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) rubric, and that USDA claims of wasteful spending are baseless.
Asked for comment, a USDA spokesperson said Thursday the agency “has worked to clean up the mess left for us by the last Administration. To no surprise, a peek behind the curtain of this Biden-era program revealed the egregious misuse of taxpayer dollars.”
Piikani Lodge Health Institute leaders say they will have to restructure budgets and reconfigure staffing to keep some semblance of their project going. The Chippewa Cree Tribal project may be halted altogether. Four Bands Community Fund did not respond to an interview request by publication deadline. Awardees say the terminations hinder economic progress, not just in their communities, but across the state.
MONTANA PROJECTS CUT
The Chippewa Cree Tribe in north-central Montana was awarded a grant of nearly $6 million for a land acquisition project.
Chippewa Cree planning director Neal Rosette said the tribe planned to purchase agricultural land on and around the reservation and train prospective farmers and ranchers how to manage it.
Though reservation land can be used for farming and ranching, Rosette said, land prices can keep people from entering the industry. The Rocky Boy’s Reservation is home to almost 3,400 people, about 35% of whom live below the poverty line, according to U.S. Census data. The median household income on the reservation is $49,550, almost $26,000 less than the state’s average.
“We are trying to give opportunities to our young folks to make a living,” Rosette said.
Rosette said people working on the project had been trying to close on a 320-acre reservation property for months. The land costs about $400,000, but according to Rosette the tribe has received only about $50,000 of the nearly $6 million grant since 2023. The tribe, he said, asked USDA repeatedly to release the funds, but received minimal communication from the federal agency.
“They drug their feet, drug their feet, and then finally they pulled the rug out from under us,” he said.
Rosette has written many grants for the tribe in the past. He said receiving the termination letter from USDA marked “the first time I’ve ever got to the point where I felt like crying.”
“It’s so, so, so cruel,” he said. “It’s the worst feeling in the world. It was devastating for everybody. We were so proud of this project. We were so happy that we were finally going to be able to recover some lands for the benefit of our young people. And now it’s gone.”
Micaela Young, development director at Piikani Lodge Health Institute, said the canceled grant will delay construction on the community training center on the Blackfeet Reservation.
The Piikani Lodge project included building an industrial community kitchen where agricultural producers could prepare and process products like jams and jerky.
In its termination letter to Piikani Lodge, the USDA cited a “$20,000 allocation for a barbeque smoker” as an example of funding for items “outside the program’s mission of increasing land access.” The USDA has also mentioned a “$20,000 barbeque smoker” in statements to other media outlets as an example of “inappropriate spending.”
Paul said the characterization is hurtful.
“We did all this work, we spent so many years on this,” she said. “To say this was built on fraud? It’s a travesty. This was going to be five years of jobs for our people. Can you imagine the economic development that would come from that?”
‘DEI IS THE NEW BUZZWORD IN D.C.’
Paul and Rosette both took issue with the USDA’s assertion that programs benefiting tribes fall into the category of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). It’s well established in federal law that tribal citizenship is a political classification, not a racial one. In a May 2025 memorandum, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins acknowledged the distinction, writing, “the Department’s unique government-to-government relationship” with tribes and their members “are legally distinct from policy-based Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs.”
“We are a sovereign nation,” Rosette said of the Chippewa Cree Tribe. “We have a political relationship with this government.”
Democratic state Sen. Jonathan Windy Boy, a citizen of the Chippewa Cree Tribe who is running for Congress in Montana’s eastern district, called the agriculture department’s DEI reasoning “ludicrous.”
“DEI is the new buzzword in D.C.” he said. “Why isn’t our delegation protecting the sovereign status of the tribes? The bottom line is we don’t have representation in D.C.”
Asked for comment on the grant terminations, a spokesperson for incumbent eastern district U.S. Congressman Troy Downing said his “office is aware of the rescinded grants and welcomes input from community members regarding their impact.” A spokesperson for Sen. Steve Daines said the senator “is looking into the grant cancellations and will always work to support Montana’s tribal communities.”
Sen. Tim Sheehy and Rep. Ryan Zinke did not respond to requests for comment.
Walter Schweitzer, president of the Montana Farmers Union, said that as land, livestock and equipment prices increase, and as more farms are purchased by corporate entities, it becomes increasingly hard for young people to enter the agriculture industry.
“The average age of a farmer or rancher is somewhere around 60,” he said. “We need to encourage and incentivize any way we can to get young people involved in agriculture. And having diversity in who gets into agriculture is a positive thing because they bring a diverse set of ideas.”
Micaela Young, of Piikani Lodge Health Institute, said ag producers living on tribal land additionally face unique challenges. A patchwork of historical and sometimes conflicting federal policies have congealed over the course of more than a century into an unwieldy system of property ownership on reservations. Banks have not learned to effectively navigate the legal, bureaucratic and financial peculiarities of that system, making it difficult for prospective producers to access the capital necessary to enter the agricultural industry. Tribes, Young said, are also often located far from markets where they could sell their products.
“These kinds of projects that bring capital into Native communities can really help revitalize their main streets, increase public safety, there’s the opioid crisis, the suicide crisis in tribal communities, and people are really looking for hope,” Young said. “People are looking for jobs. Families need that income. So this kind of work really does lift up our Native communities to strengthen the overall state.”
WHAT’S NEXT?
Piikani Lodge leaders said they plan to file an appeal through the National Appeals Division, which reports directly to the Secretary of Agriculture, before the 30-day deadline.
Andrew Berger, director of agriculture and climate adaptation at Piikani Lodge, said the organization is drafting a petition urging restoration of the funds.
“We’re still wrapping our heads around this,” he said. “[The grant] supported salaries and internships and all kinds of things. So we need to fill those gaps with other funding.”
Rosette isn’t sure whether the Chippewa Cree Tribe will file an appeal — an action he said requires time and resources. He said the tribe plans to ask the USDA to reconsider its decision.
“Whether they will listen?” he said. “Who knows.”
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Nora Mabie | nmabie@montanafreepress.org
Nora Mabie covers Indigenous affairs at Montana Free Press. She previously covered Indigenous communities at the five Lee Montana newspapers: the Missoulian, Billings Gazette, Independent Record (Helena), Ravalli Republic and Montana Standard (Butte). Prior to that, she covered tribal affairs for the Great Falls Tribune. Nora’s reporting about the return of ancestral remains and disparities in Native life expectancy have received state and national journalism awards. She was a 2023 National Fellow at the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism and a McGraw Center for Business Journalism Fellow… More by Nora Mabie
According to the New York Times, 300 individual billionaires spent more than $3 billion during the 2024 election cycle. Keep those figures in mind as you consider Initiative 194 and its potential impact on Montana values.
The Montana Chamber of Commerce, the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce and the Billings Chamber of Commerce have taken a clear and united stand against I-194. We believe Montanans deserve a full and transparent explanation of why.
No doubt, I-194 would prohibit Montana businesses and nonprofits from participating in the political process. Under this initiative, family-owned businesses including farms, ranches, restaurants and retail stores could not respond publicly to a ballot initiative targeting them. A Main Street restaurant could not support a local levy to improve public safety. A small business coalition could not push back against misleading claims that threaten their livelihoods and their employees’ jobs. These are not hypothetical concerns; they are the everyday realities of how Montana businesses engage in the civic life of our communities.
But make no mistake, I-194 does not remove big money from our politics.
While cleverly named “The Montana Plan,” I-194 should be called the “California Plan” since California is home to more than 200 individual billionaires and places no restrictions whatsoever on out-of-state wealthy individuals. Under I-194, a single well-funded outsider could bankroll a campaign to devastate a Montana agricultural practice, a logging operation or a ranching family, while the Montana businesses under attack would be legally silenced. That is not campaign finance reform. That is a one-sided disarmament of Montana’s own voices.
The supporters of I-194 like to reference the Copper King’s influence that occurred at the beginning of the 20th century. And while this initiative would have prohibited the Anaconda Copper Company from supporting candidates, the actual individual Kings of copper — the millionaires that owned those companies — would have still been free to bankroll their preferred candidates, while the rest of Montana’s small business community sat in silence. They would have loved this proposal.
Montana has a proud history of fighting outside influence in our politics, from the battles against the Copper Kings to the Corrupt Practices Act of 1912. But that Act targeted corruption and covert control of government, not the right of businesses and community organizations to have an open voice in the state they call home. There is a meaningful difference between a corporation secretly buying a legislator and a chamber of commerce publicly advocating for its members.
We raised constitutional and legal questions about I-194’s scope before the Montana Supreme Court because those questions deserved an answer. We respect the court’s ruling. And now we are doing exactly what any organization or individual is entitled to do: making our case openly, with our names attached and letting Montanans decide.
That is what chambers of commerce do. We advocate for Montana’s businesses and workers — the coffee shops, hardware stores, family farms, and yes, the larger employers whose presence helps keep smaller businesses alive. We are Montanans representing Montana’s economic engine.
We agree that Montanans deserve a political system where their voices matter more than outside money. Silencing Montana businesses while leaving out-of-state billionaires free to spend without restriction does not achieve that goal. It simply changes who gets silenced.
We urge every Montanan to read I-194 carefully — all of it — and ask: Does this make our democracy stronger, or does it make some voices louder by making others disappear?
Montana Chamber of Commerce, Kalispell Chamber of Commerce and Billings Chamber of Commerce.
GREAT FALLS — Chester-Joplin-Inverness standout Brynn Kammerzell announced Thursday that she has committed to play for the Montana State women’s basketball program.
Kammerzell helped lead C-J-I o a 24-3 record and a fourth-place finish at the Class C state tournament this past season. She averaged more than 24 points per game as a junior.
WATCH: Brynn Kammerzell talks about her commitment to MSU
CJI Standout Brynn Kammerzell Commits to Montana State
For Kammerzell, the decision came down to more than basketball.
“I just love (MSU’s) winning culture right now,” Kammerzell said. “They’ve been on fire winning lots of games. Their coaching staff is just incredible. And their girls are my type of people. Just great people. Fun to be around.”
Kammerzell said seeing other Class C athletes find success at Montana State, like Roberts’ Taylee Chirrick and Saco’s Teagan Erickson, also made the transition feel natural.
“It’s really nice knowing that these Class C girls are going to be there,” she said. “I’ve known Teagan for a while when I was a freshman she was competing against me at state high jump.”
She added that staying close to home was another major factor in her choice.
“It means a lot to be a Montana girl and to be able to go play at Montana State,” Kammerzell said.
Kammerzell has been a standout multi-sport athlete throughout her high school career. Along with her basketball success, she has helped the C-J-I volleyball team reach the Class C state tournament twice and will be chasing her third straight Class C high jump state championship next weekend.
Now that her college decision is made, Kammerzell says she can fully focus on her senior season and locking up a track and field title next week.
“I feel so relieved,” she said. “I’m so happy with the choice I made. And I can’t wait to be a Bobcat, but I want to finish off my school season with a trophy.”
BILLINGS — A new report highlighting aging roads and bridges across Montana is raising concerns in Billings, but transportation leaders say long-term investments and infrastructure projects are already underway to address the problem.
Watch the story below:
Montana transportation leaders address aging infrastructure at Billings summit
The report from national transportation research group TRIP found seven bridges in the Billings area are in poor condition, while another 186 are rated fair. Statewide, nearly one-third of Montana’s major roads are considered in poor condition, and 7% of bridges are classified as structurally deficient.
New report flags Billings bridges, rough roads as infrastructure concerns
The report did not identify the specific bridges in Billings.
For residents like Alisha Oster, who works at a gas station near the Blue Creek bridge that spans the Yellowstone River, concerns about aging infrastructure feel personal. She said crossing the bridge can feel unsettling, especially when large trucks pass through.
“When you go across it, it sounds like it’s cracking sometimes,” Oster said. “It just sometimes makes me feel like I’m just going to fall.”
Isabel Spartz/MTN News
Crews rehabilitated the Blue Creek bridge in 2024, but Oster said the report heightened concerns about other bridges in the Billings area.
“So it is concerning, not just this bridge, but like all the other bridges around Billings,” she said. “What happens if the bridge does cave in?”
Transportation leaders said the report’s findings were expected and reflect challenges the state has already been working to address.
Isabel Spartz/MTN News
“We’re well aware that it was going to come out,” Montana Department of Transportation Director Chris Dorrington said. “The results are not surprising. Some of Montana’s roads and bridges need attention.”
On Thursday, transportation officials, contractors, and local leaders gathered at the Northern Hotel in downtown Billings for the 2026 Infrastructure Summit, where discussions focused on long-term transportation and infrastructure needs across the state.
Isabel Spartz/MTN News
Dorrington said the summit brought together stakeholders from transportation, water, and wastewater systems, local governments, and private industry.
“We all came together … all interested in trying to do the very best of what we can for Montana’s transportation system,” Dorrington said.
David Smith, executive director of the Montana Contractors Association and chair of the Montana Infrastructure Coalition, said many rural and county-owned bridges across Montana are decades old and in need of repair or replacement.
“We have a lot of off-system bridges, which are county bridges that are in old shape,” Smith said. “They’re 70, 80, 90 years old, so they need attention.”
Dorrington said MDT monitors thousands of bridges statewide through a rotating inspection schedule and has already developed long-term investment plans to address deteriorating infrastructure.
Isabel Spartz/MTN News
“In Montana, out of 5,000 (bridges), we have a lot that are going to need to be rebuilt, in addition to being maintained,” Dorrington said. “We look at the report as an indicator.”
He said the state plans to invest $1 billion into bridge projects over the next five years, including repairs or replacements for roughly 40 bridges annually.
Montana bridges are breaking down, but state has $1 billion plan to fix them
Still, officials acknowledged that inflation and rising construction costs continue stretching transportation dollars thinner.
“We still receive about the same amount of fuel tax revenues, and cars are more efficient,” Smith said. “So the income level for the state has been pretty flat through the years, but the cost of construction has greatly increased.”
Isabel Spartz/MTN News
The TRIP report warned that delaying repairs only increases long-term costs. According to the report, every dollar of deferred road and bridge maintenance can lead to an additional $4 to $5 in future repair costs.
Aging roads and rising costs put pressure Montana’s infrastructure system
Despite the challenges, officials pointed to major projects already completed in Billings as evidence that infrastructure investments are improving safety and capacity. Smith highlighted the recently completed $72 million Yellowstone River bridge replacement on Interstate 90.
“It increased the safety and the capacity for the interstate through Billings,” Smith said. “It’s been a great project, but it’s not cheap.”
Leaders at the summit also discussed future transportation projects, including planned improvements to the Johnson Lane interchange in Lockwood, which is expected to become a diverging diamond interchange.
Isabel Spartz/MTN News
The summit also focused on broader infrastructure concerns beyond highways and bridges, including water systems, wastewater facilities, rail infrastructure, and airports.
While construction projects may frustrate drivers in the short term, leaders argued that proactive investment can prevent larger infrastructure failures and more expensive repairs later.
“It’s important that associations and government work together to try and make sure that we’re in front of those things and anticipating where there might be failures in the future and mitigate that,” Smith said.
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