Montana’s two congressional representatives are among a faction of U.S. House Republicans backing President Donald Trump’s sprawling budget bill currently working its way through the chamber, though they also also expressed some reservations about provisions affecting public lands.
The proposal, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, would aim to reduce spending on a range of programs, including Medicaid, food assistance and clean energy tax credits as national lawmakers stare down a federal budget deficit and look to offset the costs of continuing the Trump administration’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as proposed in the bill. Other components of the more than 1,000-page bill call for the Interior Department to sell public land and reduce the fossil fuel royalty rates that have an outsized impact on eastern Montana communities’ local government coffers.
The bill has faced some opposition from hard-line House GOP members who insist it doesn’t go far enough to cut spending and reduce the federal deficit. National news reports described Trump resisting the influence of that wing of the Republican caucus this week.
In public statements, Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke has generally endorsed how the high-profile bill would try to shrink government programs, arguing it will help Congress afford ongoing tax reductions. But he also has said he won’t support the federal land sales provision currently in the package. Zinke was first elected to the House in 2014 and is a former Trump cabinet member.
“Whatever we have in savings, that will roll over, most of us believe, to the tax provisions so the Americans don’t get caught with the biggest tax increase in the history of this country,” Zinke said in a May 18 interview with The Hill Sunday.
A memo from the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means provided to Montana Free Press by Zinke’s office estimated that nearly 56,000 families in Zinke’s western Montana congressional district could see a reduction to their child tax credits if the existing tax cuts were to expire, and that roughly 7,500 Montana farms would pay more in estate taxes when a family operation changes hands after a death.
But cost savings measures in the budget bill, which is inching closer to consideration before the full House, also impact Montana constituents. Republicans in Congress have pushed for a phased-in approach to adding work requirements for certain Medicaid beneficiaries, aiming to shrink the rolls of the public health insurance program. That maneuver could save the federal government $280 billion, according to a Tuesday analysis released by the Congressional Budget Office.
Roughly 13,000 Montana adults in Zinke’s district are currently enrolled in Medicaid and could likely be subject to new work requirements, according to a March estimate from KFF, a national health policy organization.
Zinke has said that the projected cuts to Medicaid — which include penalties for states who cover undocumented immigrants and restrictions on coverage for gender transition-related treatments — would not take away benefits from “people who deserve benefits.”
“For people that are riding the system, we gotta clamp in,” Zinke told The Hill Sunday.
Montana’s federal delegation, including Republican Sens. Steve Daines and Tim Sheehy, received a letter Tuesday signed by Montana’s state legislative Democrats urging them to oppose the bill’s proposed cuts to Medicaid for health care providers that offer abortion services. The letter said that the health clinics run by Planned Parenthood of Montana would be particularly impacted by the bill’s language, risking reimbursement for routine health services like screening for sexually transmitted infections and cancer.
“The consequences of ‘defunding’ Planned Parenthood could be catastrophic. Montanans cannot afford to have the government playing political games with the health care programs and an essential provider that they need,” the letter said.
In a Tuesday statement, a spokesperson for eastern Montana Rep. Troy Downing said the first-term Republican was “extraordinarily supportive of provisions within the bill to cut funding for organizations like Planned Parenthood,” saying such groups “facilitate the brutality of abortion.”
But other elements of the budget bill are creating schisms in the Republican House caucus, including among Montana’s delegation.
One provision ostensibly developed to help the country gain ground on its deficit is also one of the bill’s most controversial components: a directive to the Interior Department to sell roughly 500,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land in Utah and Nevada. Zinke, who led the Interior Department for two years during Trump’s first term, and Downing, who formerly served as Montana’s Commissioner of Securities and Insurance, have taken to social media to note their opposition to that piece of the bill.
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In a Monday evening post to X, Downing described that as one of the bill’s “sticking points” he would be “looking at.” Asked if he would vote for the package if that provision remains in the bill, a spokesperson for Downing didn’t answer directly, but did say the representative is “opposed to the sale of public lands to state or private entities” and that the congressman is “advocating strongly against the inclusion of any amendments to do so.”
Zinke has used sharper language, describing the issue as “my San Juan Hill” in a May 7 Facebook post.
“I cannot and will not vote to sell public lands,” wrote Zinke, who recently partnered with Rep. Gabe Vasquez, D-New Mexico, to form a 14-member Public Lands Caucus. “I have been crystal clear with my colleagues. Even if every square foot of public land was sold at top dollar it wouldn’t even eliminate the annual deficit. Once the land is sold and access eliminated, we will never get it back.”
Other pieces of the budget package that conservation and environmental groups have scrutinized include changes to the National Environmental Policy Act that would allow companies to pay for expedited review of — and guaranteed approval of — environmental impact statements immune from legal challenges.
Spokespersons for both Montana representatives didn’t directly answer MTFP’s question about whether they support that change or reductions to fossil fuel royalties, which boost local tax coffers in carbon-rich portions of eastern Montana.
Downing’s office wrote that he “supports amendments that would streamline permitting to unleash American energy” and noted the representative’s support for a provision to keep the Bull Mountains Mine operational while operator Signal Peak Energy awaits authorization for an expansion.
According to a report by the Congressional Research Service, onshore revenues from federal oil and gas generated $8.4 billion for the federal government in fiscal year 2023, about half of which was distributed to states. In Montana, those royalties are split between the state and local governments. Congress’ proposal would knock the royalty rate down to 12.5%, reversing the increase incorporated in the Inflation Reduction Act Congress passed in 2022. Coal royalty rates would also fall under the bill, from 12.5% to 7%.
In an emailed statement to MTFP, conservation and environmental groups have characterized other pieces of the bill calling for mandatory and non-competitive energy lease sales as unpopular “giveaways to corporate interests” that subvert public processes. Republican supporters argue that these changes will grow the economy. Democrats counter that oil and gas development on federal land is already at record levels and Big Oil doesn’t need any help boosting its profits.
The House Rules Committee was set to take up the bill during a rare 1 a.m. meeting on Wednesday morning in accordance with House Speaker Mike Johnson’s self-imposed goal to get it through the House by Memorial Day.
As of Tuesday afternoon, representatives had proposed 304 amendments to the bill, the vast majority of which were requested by the chamber’s Democrats.
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