Senate panel advances Crow coal land swap 6-5, rejects four amendments

The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs voted 6-5 Wednesday to advance the Crow Revenue Act, as amended, clearing a Montana coal land exchange that would skip environmental review. Chair Lisa Murkowski opposed every amendment offered. A revenue-sharing guarantee would "probably make it harder for parties to reach the revenue sharing agreement that is required in the base text here," she said.

The bill would convey federal parcels in Montana's Bull Mountains, north of Billings, to the Hope Family Trust, which plans to partner with current lessee Signal Peak Energy to mine coal. In exchange, Murkowski said, substantial privately owned mineral interests within the Crow Reservation would return to the Crow Tribe. She said the tribe would receive a continuing share of revenue from any future development of the exchanged Bull Mountain mineral interest, and that a related land exchange would improve public access. The bill does not name Signal Peak. It requires no appraisal. It exempts the mining from review under the National Environmental Policy Act.

Vice Chair Brian Schatz offered four amendments. All four failed 5-6. One would have named Signal Peak in the text. The others addressed appraisal requirements, revenue-sharing guarantees and a delayed effective date. Schatz cited Interior inspector general findings that Signal Peak submitted false royalty invoices from 2016 to 2018. Before the final vote, the committee adopted an amendment from Sen. Steve Daines by voice vote, with Sens. Lujan, Smith, Schatz and Cantwell recorded as voting no.

Daines, the sponsor, said the structure protects tribal revenue. He called Schatz's revenue-sharing amendment an affront to tribal sovereignty and opposed the others as unnecessary or as stalling implementation. Crow Tribe leadership backs the underlying arrangement as a way to protect tribal income and sovereignty, and Chairman White Clay attended the markup. Daines said the tribe should be left to negotiate its own terms. Environmental groups oppose the swap, arguing it favors coal development at the expense of environmental review in the Bull Mountains.

The Crow Tribe testified in 2024 that it hoped to earn $100 million over 10 years from the coal. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill would cost $72 million over 10 years in uncollected federal royalties.

The measure now goes to the full Senate.