By Kennedy Maize
National non-profit environmental law firm Earthjustice has sued the Interior Department over approval of an expansion of a notorious Montana underground coal mine.
The suit this month (Mar. 3) in U.S. District Court for the District of Montana, Billings Division, charges that Interior’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM) in June, 2025, approved a major expansion of the Bull Mountains mine and “continued to sidestep environmental concerns when it approved of the federal mining plan modification for the…expansion on June 6, 2025. OSM rushed its approval of the project, skipping preparation of a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) and ignoring related public comments.”
Representing the Montana Environmental Information Center, Center for Biological Diversity, and Wildearth Guardians, Earthjustice says that the Bull Mountains mine near Roundup in central Montana “has a long history involving criminal and corrupt actions, and it has devastated the ecology and ranching community of the Bull Mountains. Nonetheless, OSM attempted to justify this rushed and reckless approval process in the name of addressing a spurious ‘energy emergency’ despite domestic fossil fuel production occurring at near record levels, oversaturated fossil-fuel markets, the declining relevance of coal, and approximately 99% of coal from the Bull Mountains Mine being destined—not for domestic use—but for export.”
When Interior approved the mine expansion last year, the New York Times reported that “the mine has been embroiled in allegations involving bribery, cocaine trafficking, firearms violations and the faked kidnapping of an executive.”
The mine, owned by Signal Peak Energy of Roundup, exports its coal from under federal and state land to Japan and South Korea. The Interior decision allowed the mine to add ‘22.8 million tons of federal coal and 34.5 million tons of adjacent non-federal coal, extending the life of the Bull Mountains Mine by up to nine years.’ The mine uses longwall mining technology, the most efficient form of underground mining where the geology permits.
When DOI approved the mine expansion last June, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said, “This is what energy leadership looks like. By unlocking access to coal in America, we are not only fueling jobs here at home, but we are also standing shoulder-to-shoulder with our allies abroad.” In addition to citing Trump’s declaration, Burgum noted the Supreme Court’s then recent Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County Colorado decision that weakens the National Environmental Policy Act.
Signal Peak is owned by giant Ohio electric utility holding company FirstEnergy Corp., Gunvor Group, a Swiss energy commodities trading firm, and Ohio based WMB Marketing Ventures, owned by coal magnate Wayne Boich.
The mining company has a checkered history, replete with safety violations and criminal activity, reported in a Jan. 13, 2023 New York Times article headlined “A Faked Kidnapping and Cocaine: A Montana Mine’s Descent into Chaos.” The article detailed crimes that “were part of the unraveling of a coal company called Signal Peak Energy that also involved bribery, cocaine trafficking, firearms violations, worker safety and environmental infringements, a network of shell companies, a modern-day castle, an amputated finger and past links to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.”
Earthjustice has been challenging the mine’s expansion going back to well before the latest OSM approval of the expansion. The lawfirm in August 2024 sued the Montana Department of Environmental Quality for approving an expansion of the portion of the mine on state land. The state agency approved an expansion of 12.7 million tons. The mine has historically produced about 7 million tons annually, according to Global Energy Monitor. It is the nation’s sixth largest underground coal mine.
The mine has also already faced federal court reviews of OSM’s approval of expanded production in the Obama administration and the first Trump administration. In February 2023, the U.S. District Court in Montana found that a 2018 OSM environmental assessment, which issued a “finding of no significant impact” from the increased mining underplayed greenhouse gas emissions that would result.
That mine expansion case dated back to 2012, when Signal Peak sought Interior approval for the mine expansion. OSM in 2015 did an environmental assessment, the first step in the $analysis under the NEPA process, concluding that the environmental impact was insignificant.
“The Trump administration rubber-stamped an expansion for a mine with an alarming history,” said Shiloh Hernandez, senior attorney with Earthjustice’s Northern Rockies Office. “The sham energy emergency that this approval was based on does not exist, and even if it did, shipping coal overseas wouldn’t help to address it. The agency has again failed to faithfully follow the science, so we’ll see them in court.”
Earthjustice — founded in 1971 as the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund — has a full-time staff of 600 including 220 lawyers in 15 offices in 11 states and the District of Columbia. Earthjustice reported 2025 revenues of $207.2 million and assets of $315.7 million. Total expanses were $183.7 million.