The Montana Environmental Information Center has won an open records battle with the city of Great Falls over documents concerning the proposed Highwood Generating Station Power Plant east of the Electric City. State District Judge E. Wayne Phillips cited "the clear constitutional right of Montana citizens to view documents of their Governmental entities." The ruling came nearly three years after the lawsuit was filed.

The Montana Trail Gallery has joined most of the business and property owners affected last year by a natural gas explosion in historic downtown Bozeman, in filing a lawsuit against Northwestern Energy, saying the company knew, or should have known, that its threaded connector, in the service line behind the Gallery, was substandard, and had the potential to fail.

Yesterday morning, an envelope, with a return address of Butte, armed with a triggering device, after being opened, dispersed a small amount of white powder in a room at the Department of Labor nad Industry, promoting officials to close the building's third floor and isolate three employees, as a precaution. It was a false alarm.

A national wind power lobby, American Wind Energy Association, says a proposal requiring recipients of federal clean-energy grants to use "made-in-America' parts will slow project development, and end up costing an estimated 1,000 jobs in Montana, while Sen. Jon Tester stands by the proposal, which says project developers qualifying for the grant must manufacture their project components in the United States.

Denbury Resources, one of the nation's top independent oil companies, based in Plano, Texas, could become Montana's largest oil producer. Shareholders are voting today on the $4.5 billion purchase of Encore Acquisition, currently the state's largest oil producer, with assets in the Williston, Big Horn and Powder River Basins, of Montana and North Dakota.

With one week remaining for candidates to file for office in Montana, nearly two thirds of the 126 contested legislative seats are without a candidate from one of the major two parties. Democrats haven't fielded a candidate yet in 46 legislative races, while Republicans have yet to sign someone up in 32 races. Republicans control the Senate by a 27-23 margin, and the house is tied 50-50.

A challenge by Ronald A. Smith, a Montana death row inmate, who sought to have his sentence changed, due to ineffective council, has been rjected by a three member panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, agreeing that his defense attorney should have done a better job, but saying that didn't matter, because Smith was determined to plead guilty, and rejected a plea agreement.

The 2010 U.S. Census is coming soon, and the labor intensive government program is looking to fill hundreds of jobs in the state, with numerous positions starting at $11 an hour, with crew leaders making more. Many of the positions are part time, about 20 hours a week. Regional census offices in Montana are in Billings, Great Falls and Missoula.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told a group of more than 70 people gathered in Deer Lodge Saturday the Obama Administration could support the mandate in U.S. Senator Jon Tester's Forest Jobs and Recreation Act to log a set number of acres every year, as a pilot project. The act would designate more than 600,000 acres of wilderness on three national forests statewide, while also mandating that 10,000 acres be logged every year for a decade.

Montana Congressman Denny Rehberg introduced legislation yesterday that would exempt the state from the Federal Antiquities Act, a law that allows the President to designate land as a National Monument, without the approval of Congress, or state legislatures. This, after a leaked Department of Interior document, detailing plans to create a new National Monument from Fort Benton to Fort Peck, became public.