NORTHERN PLAINS RESOURCE COUNCIL

We are from the plains and mountains, cities and towns. We are everyday Montanans who love where we live. We stand up, shoulder-to-shoulder, to protect this place we all call home.

We believe that true prosperity begins with healthy land, water, and air. We believe that our families, farms, ranches, schools, businesses, governments, and communities thrive when we are good stewards of these resources. We believe that if we look beyond our fences, listen to one another, and keep our minds open, we will find creative solutions to secure a clean, healthful environment for all.

We are working toward a future where we live in harmony with nature, where our economy serves the people rather than the people serving the economy, where neighbors work side-by-side to build a world that lives up to our ideals of fairness, inclusion, and justice.

To create this future, we must act now. The actions we take today will determine the world that our children and grandchildren inherit. Working together, right now, we can ensure true prosperity for generations to come.

- Organize Montanans to protect our water, land, air, and working landscapes,
- Support a healthy, localized, and sustainable economy in farm and ranch country and in our towns,
- Build strong grassroots leaders, always considering the next generation.
- On a fundamental level, Northern Plains is about environmental protection, economic justice, rural self-determination, democracy, and accountability for the decisions made by corporations and government entities. These principles show up throughout our work, though the issues themselves change over time to meet members’ needs.

To achieve these principles, we use a range of strategies that include:
- Community organizing, research, and public education to help us elevate public understanding of the issues and people’s desire to be part of the solution;
- Trainings and leadership development to help us strengthen the voices of Montanans;
- Legislative lobbying, litigation, and agency work to help us hold public officials and corporations accountable.
- We aim to build power among everyday Montanans so their voices are heard when decisions are being made that affect their lives.

Northern Plains has a 50-year track record of successfully protecting Montana’s air, water, and working landscapes. Our Board of Directors is made up entirely of grassroots members from across Montana. We view these individuals as the most qualified for taking on challenges in their communities. Our board consists of 33 leaders from across the state.
Having grassroots members fill our board ensures that we work on behalf of community interests. We trust that those who live, work, and contribute to their communities also know what types of changes would benefit them collectively.
Our nineteen-person staff takes on the role of supporting the decisions and efforts of our board and Task Forces. We maintain an executive leadership team that is responsible for structuring and overseeing our staff. Our staff come from communities across Montana and states beyond, all sharing in the effort to grow and train our member leaders while supporting their work.
Northern Plains has one dedicated staff member to our Soil Health work, Gusty Catherine Sauer. We are confident in her capacity and experience to carry out the plan laid out in this proposal

Clean Energy
• Since our long-fought victory in passing C-PACE in the 2021 Legislative Session, eight counties have integrated the ability for businesses to implement energy efficiency measures in a cost-effective way. We are proud to report that Yellowstone County recently approved C-PACE despite early opposition to the program. Three Northern Plains affiliate groups are actively working to expand C-PACE into more counties throughout the state as well.
• Our affiliates in Lewistown and Glendive led resoundingly successful solarize campaigns, and helped bring the benefits of solar to Montana’s rural communities.
Oil & Gas
• Northern Plains members pushed the Board of Oil and Gas Conservation to review the state’s bonding levels for oil and gas wells and initiate a rulemaking to increase bonding amounts commensurate with the funds needed to responsibly clean up wells. Thanks to pressure from our members, BOGC has applied for and received significant federal funds to help clean up the existing problem.
Coal
• We organized our affiliate the Bull Mountain Land Alliance to ensure that area ranchers and the community are well-informed and can plan around the mine’s activities which include up-to-date information from the DEQ on the mine’s trajectory, plans, and timeframe, regular hydrologic reports on the mine, a stronger plan/agreement for water monitoring and replacement as the mine progresses.
• We successfully challenged the BLM’s Resource Management Plan in the Miles City district in east central Montana to demand a Resource Management Plan that accounts for climate impacts of full coal extraction from the Powder River Basin. The BLM is starting over to include climate impacts and new recommendations for resource use.
GNA
• As a result of GNA member involvement and technical advisor input, the Stillwater mine has implemented state-of-the-art, satellite-linked survey equipment to measure ground movement and groundwater pore pressure changes for the facilities.
• The catastrophic flooding of the Yellowstone River and its tributaries greatly impacted our affiliate communities and shut down the Stillwater Mine. The Good Neighbor Agreement ensured adequate response and attention to pollution as the mine rushed to reopen following the floods.
Ag, Local Foods, & Soil
• We built public support for the upcoming Packer and Stockyards Act rulemaking process to be held during 2023. Northern Plains has continued to meet with the US Department of Agriculture and mobilize Northern Plains members to take action.
Legislature
• We stopped bad bills that inhibit Montanans’ right to elect judges, place taxpayers at risk for billions of dollars in lawsuits, tax clean energy to death, allow oil and gas corporations to appropriate water without a permit, allow utilities to punish Montanans that generate their own electricity, and more.
• Our Soil Health Week Resolution, SJ 9, passed into law.