MONTANA

Judge dismisses climate lawsuit

BILLINGS — A federal judge on Oct. 15 dismissed a lawsuit from young climate activists seeking to block President Donald Trump’s executive orders promoting fossil fuels and discouraging renewable energy.

U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen said the plaintiffs showed overwhelming evidence climate change affects them and that it will worsen as a result of Trump’s orders.

But the judge concluded their request for the courts to intervene was “unworkable” because it was beyond the power of the judiciary to create environmental policies.

The 22 plaintiffs included youths who prevailed in a landmark climate trial against the state of Montana in 2023. During a two-day hearing in September in Missoula, the activists and experts who testified on their behalf described Trump’s actions to boost drilling and mining and discourage renewable energy as a growing danger to children and the planet.

A United Nations agency said on Oct. 15 that heat-trapping carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere jumped by the highest amount on record last year, “turbo-charging” the climate and making weather more extreme.

The Montana state constitution declares that people have a “right to a clean and healthful environment,” but that language is absent from the U.S. Constitution.

White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said the ruling marked a victory for the administration and voters who supported its agenda to create American “energy dominance” by producing more fossil fuels.

Christensen said in a 31-page ruling that injunction sought by the activists would have effectively meant reverting to the environmental policies of the Biden administration. Enforcing it would have required scrutiny of every climate-related action taken since Trump took office in January, the judge added.

The climate activists planned to appeal the ruling, said Julia Olson, chief legal counsel at environmental group Our Children’s Trust, which represented the plaintiffs.

NEW MEXICO

Nuclear waste plan dropped

SANTA FE — A private energy company is abandoning a proposal to store nuclear waste at a site in southeastern New Mexico.

Holtec International described an “untenable path forward for used fuel storage in New Mexico” as it walked away from the proposal to temporarily hold spent fuel from commercial nuclear power plants across the nation. The New Jersey-based company confirmed its decision on Oct. 9.

Holtec said the move would allow it to work with other states that are more amenable.

The New Mexico project was cast aside despite a favorable U.S. Supreme Court ruling in August that rebooted plans for temporary storage in Texas and New Mexico.

The U.S. is at an impasse over a permanent solution for storing spend nuclear fuel, as roughly 100,000 tons of spent fuel, some of it dating from the 1980s, pile up at current and former nuclear plant sites nationwide. The waste was meant to be kept there temporarily before being deposited deep underground.

U.S. nuclear regulators in 2023 licensed the proposed multibillion-dollar storage complex in New Mexico, while opposition persisted.

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and the Legislature put up stiff resistance with legislation that threatened to withhold state permits at least until a permanent storage solution is in place.

By contrast, Lujan Grisham’s Republican predecessor, Susana Martinez, had been supportive of the project. Holtec had argued the plan was safe and would be an economic boon for the region, without interfering with nearby oil development.

SOUTH DAKOTA

City giving away housing lots

The picturesque city of Chamberlain, South Dakota, on the shore of the Missouri River, is so eager to encourage development of new housing that it bought a tract of land and is giving away lots to anyone who promises to build a home.

The free lots, awarded to individuals or developers through a lottery system, are located in a subdivision where the city has used taxpayer money to build streets and install sewer and water lines to further jump-start construction.

The effort to use municipal funds and resources to spur growth in Chamberlain is seen as the only way to create significant new housing in a city of about 2,500 people known more for walleye fishing and bird hunting than for commerce or industry.

In recent years, Chamberlain has seen development of very few new homes and has been losing some family housing to conversion of existing properties into short-term rentals, said Sheena Larsen, executive director of the Lake Francis Case Development Corp.

The land giveaway is part of a municipal subdivision development project that began in 2018 when the city spent $900,000 to buy a 60-acre tract south of downtown and east of Interstate 90. The property was divided into 30 housing lots, one multi-family lot for apartments and 11 commercial lots for businesses, city administrator Clint Soulek said.

Since the lottery, seven homes have been built in the subdivision. Of those, four houses have gone to families who are new to the area, Soulek said.

TEXAS

Texas Tech bans tortilla-throwing

LUBBOCK — Texas Tech is banning the throwing of tortillas by fans on kickoffs after the 14th-ranked Red Raiders were penalized twice and fined for objects being thrown onto the field in a recent home game.

Athletic director Kirby Hocutt said on Oct. 20 that fans entering the stadium would be instructed to discard tortillas, and there would be reminders before kickoff for anyone who took tortillas in to give them to stadium workers in order for them to be thrown away.

Anyone caught throwing tortillas would have their ticket privileges revoked from the rest of the academic year across all sports, Hocutt said.

The announcement came a little more than a week after the Red Raiders were given two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties after kickoffs in a 42-17 win over Kansas. Hocutt was the lone dissenting vote when the Big 12 Conference approved a policy to penalize teams for objects thrown on the field. The vote came just before the season, and Hocutt was defiant in his reaction to the rule and its effect on a tradition that goes back years at Texas Tech.

Coach Joey McGuire had harsh words for fans after the game against the Jayhawks, but said while sitting alongside Hocutt at the coach’s regular meeting with reporters that he had also encouraged fans to continue throwing tortillas, but only on the opening kickoff.

The Big 12 fined Texas Tech $25,000 for throwing tortillas against the Jayhawks.