New coal sales on public lands weighed
DENVER — Federal officials on July 7 took a first step toward reopening vast areas of public lands in two Western states to new coal sales as part of President Donald Trump’s push to expand U.S. fossil fuel production.
The Interior Department proposal comes after the Biden administration, citing climate change, tried to end sales of the fuel from the nation’s most productive coal fields — the Powder River Basin in northeastern Wyoming and southeastern Montana.
The Trump administration is instead considering selling leases for coal mining on more than 2,600 square miles of federal lands in that region, according to documents released by officials. That’s an area larger than Delaware.
The unfolding course reversal on using public lands to boost the struggling U.S. coal industry stems from an executive order signed by Trump on his first day in office. It’s part of Trump’s broad push to increase oil, gas and coal extraction from publicly owned lands and waters in the U.S., even as Republicans pull back support for renewable energy projects.
The tax bill that Trump signed on the Fourth of July lowered royalty payments from 12.5% to 7% for companies that mine coal on public lands. The bill also has a mandate to make available for leasing 6,250 square miles — an area greater in size than Connecticut.
A spokesperson for the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management declined to say how much interest it expects from mining companies or how quickly new mines could open.
NORTH DAKOTATribes lose ruling on voting rights
BISMARCK — A federal appeals court won’t reconsider its decision in a redistricting case that went against two Native American tribes that challenged North Dakota’s legislative redistricting map, and the dispute could be headed for the U.S. Supreme Court.
The case has drawn national interest because of a 2-1 ruling issued in May by a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that erased a path through the federal Voting Rights Act for people in seven states to sue under a key provision of the landmark federal civil rights law. The tribes argued that the 2021 map violated the act by diluting their voting strength and ability to elect their own candidates.
The panel said only the U.S. Department of Justice can bring such lawsuits. That followed a 2023 ruling out of Arkansas in the same circuit that also said private individuals can’t sue under Section 2 of the law.
Those rulings conflict with decades of rulings by appellate courts in other federal circuits that have affirmed the rights of private individuals to sue under Section 2, creating a split that the Supreme Court may be asked to resolve.
After the May decision, the Spirit Lake Tribe and Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians asked the appeals court for a rehearing before all 11 judges. Attorneys general of 19 states, numerous former U.S. Justice Department attorneys, several voting rights historians and others also asked for a rehearing.
But in a ruling on July 3, the full court denied the request, with three judges saying they would have granted it.
Lenny Powell, a staff attorney for Native American Rights Fund, said in a statement that the refusal to reconsider “wrongly restricts voters disenfranchised by a gerrymandered redistricting map” from challenging that map.
MONTANAHigh court won’t weigh parental consent law
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court said on July 3 it will not hear a case involving a push to revive a law that minors must have their parents’ permission for an abortion in Montana, where voters have enshrined the right to abortion in the state’s constitution.
The justices rebuffed an appeal from the Republican-led state seeking to overturn a Montana Supreme Court ruling that struck down the law. The parental consent law passed in 2013 but was blocked in court and never took effect before it was invalidated last year.
Montana state leaders say that decision violated parents’ rights.
“The right that Montana seeks to vindicate here — parents’ right to know about, and participate in, their child’s medical decisions — falls well within the core of parents’ fundamental rights,” state attorneys argued in court documents.
Two conservative justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, wrote separately to say the high court’s denial to take up the case was about its technical legalities rather than rejection of the state’s argument.
Planned Parenthood argued that the Montana Supreme Court decision balanced the rights of parents and of minors in a state that has protected the right to abortion.
The The law would require notarized, written consent for people younger than 18 to get an abortion. It would also allow minors to petition judges for permission, a process known as judicial bypass. Montana also has another law in place requiring parents be notified of minors’ abortions.
OKLAHOMAGovernor pushes RFK Jr.’s agenda
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt said on June 26 the state is seeking federal permission to exclude soft drinks and candy from the list of items that can be purchased under the benefit for low-income Americans long known as food stamps.
Stitt made the announcement during an event at the Capitol with U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as part of the “Make America Healthy Again” initiative.
Oklahoma would join several other states that already have sought federal waivers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to prohibit the purchase of items such as soda and energy drinks under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
Stitt also signed an executive order calling into question the appropriateness of mandatory fluoridation of public drinking water and the use of commonly used artificial food coloring, including Red Dye 40. Under the order, the Oklahoma State Department of Health and Department of Equality are directed to immediately stop any endorsement of fluoridation of the public water supply. Stitt said each local municipality will still have the autonomy to make a decision to continue the practice, which has long been encouraged as a means of promoting dental health.
Stitt also said he would direct agencies that provide meals, including prisons and public schools, to discontinue the use of artificial dyes in food.