HELENA - Since the start of his administration, Gov. Greg Gianforte has set up several task forces to research and provide recommendations on issues like housing availability and property taxes. Now, he’s established one to tackle the growing demand for energy in Montana.
Gianforte established the new “Unleashing American-Made Energy Task Force” in an executive order earlier this month. It held its first meeting on Monday at the Montana State Capitol.
“Montana is already leading on energy, but we're ready for more,” Gianforte told the members.
Watch the video to hear more about the goals of the energy task force:
The task force includes state agency leaders, lawmakers and representatives from the energy industry. Sonja Nowakowski, director of the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, is the chair.
“I'm honored to lead this group,” she told MTN. “It's a big responsibility with a big task, and we're going to come out with some really important recommendations.”
The task force will be split into three sub-groups, each taking on one specific issue: electricity generation, transmission capacity and markets, and demand.
Leaders pointed to a report saying the demand for electricity in western states could rise 20% by 2034 — a rate of growth double what they were expecting two years ago. Nowakowski said some of the reasons include population growth, the move toward greater adoption of electricity for things like heating buildings and powering vehicles, and the increase in large electric consumers like data centers.
“As we talk about growing demand, we need to talk about the metrics by which we're ensuring that Montanans still have access to affordable, reliable power,” she said. “And those are going to be some hard questions to answer.”
Nowakowski also noted that Montana has seen more electrical generation capacity come online since 2019, but the actual amount of energy the state produces hasn’t increased.
“That's something this workgroup needs to talk about,” she said. “When we have different resources with different fuel types, how they contribute overall to the big picture and where you need that balance for baseload, as well as recognizing the unique role that renewables like wind and solar — which we've seen a lot have come on – how they contribute to that as well, how they contribute to grid resiliency.”
Nowakowski said the Gianforte administration is “fuel-neutral” and not focused on one particular type of energy resource. However, MTN asked her if the governor’s call to prioritize “affordable, reliable energy” meant their recommendations were more likely to point toward fossil fuels.
“I don't think so; I think everything is on the table here,” she said. “Fossil fuels certainly have a large role that needs to be played in this dialogue, and we have seen those executive orders come from President Trump and we want to take advantage of those. Montana has a wide variety of fossil fuel resources available – coal resources, natural gas resources. We also have wonderful wind resources, and we need to look at all-of-the-above solutions.”
Some of the task force’s recommendations will be intended for the 2027 Montana Legislature to consider, but Nowakowski says they could also bring shorter-term ideas that could roll out within 30, 60 or 90 days.
The task force is supposed to turn in its full recommendations to Gianforte by just under a year from now, Sept. 15, 2026.
“I ask you to dig deep, be creative, cast a wide net, look for innovations elsewhere and consider them for Montana, challenge one another, identify solutions,” Gianforte told members.
