Montana

A judge has ruled that construction of natural gas-fired power plant in Montana can resume, two months after the same judge ordered the project halted due to environmental concerns. The 175-MW Yellowstone County Generating Station, a $283 million facility sited near Laurel, has been dogged by legal actions after its air permit was challenged in […]

A judge in Montana has canceled the air quality permit for a natural gas-fired power plant under construction in the state, citing concerns about emissions of greenhouse gases from the facility. State District Judge Michael Moses on April 6 said government officials needed to more adequately consider the plant’s emissions during its lifecycle. The judge […]

ARLINGTON, Va. (March 4, 2021) – Chris Christensen, a director of NorVal Electric Cooperative in Montana, today begins his two-year term as president of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) board of directors. Curtis Wynn, NRECA’s outgoing board president and CEO of Roanoke Electric Cooperative, passed the gavel to Christensen during NRECA’s annual meeting. […]

Westmoreland Coal Co., the nation’s largest independent coal producer, announced March 15 that it has emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy and will operate as a new, privately held company. The company, headquartered in Englewood, Colorado, near Denver, said its assets, including three mines in Montana, are now owned and operated by Westmoreland Mining LLC, a […]

A subsidiary of MDU Resources Group on February 19 said it plans to close three of its coal-fired units at power plants in Montana and North Dakota. Montana-Dakota Utilities said it would partly replace the lost generation with a new simple-cycle gas-fired unit at the North Dakota site. The company on Tuesday said a biannual […]

Hydro One, Ontario’s largest transmission and distribution provider, and Spokane, Washington–based U.S. utility Avista Corp., have dropped their merger, citing separate denials of the $5.3 billion deal by regulators in Washington and Idaho. The companies said on Jan. 23 they “mutually agreed” to terminate a merger agreement they announced in July 2017. As required by […]

Colorado-based Westmoreland Coal Co. on October 9 said it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, with the company reporting more than $1.4 billion in debt. The company in its annual financial report in April of this year said it was considering bankruptcy in an effort to protect it from creditors. Westmoreland, which has operated for […]

TORONTO and SPOKANE, Wash., June 12, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Hydro One Limited (“Hydro One”) (TSX:H) and Avista Corporation (“Avista”) (NYSE:AVA) today announced that the Montana Public Service Commission (“the Commission”) has voted to approve the proposed merger, with conditions. “Hydro One is very pleased that the Montana Public Service Commission has voted favourably on […]

Talen Energy and Puget Sound Energy (PSE), owners of Units 1 and 2 at the Colstrip Power Plant in Montana, have reached an agreement to shut those units down no later than July 2022. The settlement came as a result of a lawsuit brought by the Montana Environmental Information Center and the Sierra Club in […]

Thirteen states are suing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over the recently finalized Clean Water Rule, which they say illegally puts the federal government in charge of a majority of water and land resources in the U.S.  North Dakota, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, […]

PPL Montana, a subsidiary of PPL Corp., announced on Feb. 10 that it will permanently shut down its J.E. Corette coal-fired power plant located near Billings. The 153-MW plant began operation in 1968. In 2012, the company decided to mothball the plant, retaining the option to restart it if wholesale power market conditions in the […]

Regulators from six states shared starkly different views on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) proposed carbon rules for existing power plants at a House hearing on Tuesday. Some state-level officials said the EPA’s overall emission targets and suggested means to achieve them are based on unworkable and unrealistic assumptions about how state and regional power […]