Bill swaps mineral rights between Crow Tribe and private groups
S. 239 — Crow Revenue Act · Filed by Steve Daines (R-MT) · 1 cosponsor · Introduced Jan 24, 2025 · Reported out
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What it does
The bill moves about 4,660 acres of mineral rights to the Crow Tribe. The Hope Family Trust gives up these rights. The federal government gets about 4,530 acres of mineral rights in return. The bill also swaps surface land between Musselshell Resources LLC and the federal government. The Crow Tribe's minerals will be held in federal trust. They will not be taxed by Montana.
Who it affects
The Crow Tribe gets mineral assets and tax-free status. The Hope Family Trust and Musselshell Resources LLC get federal mineral and surface interests. Montana may lose tax money if minerals are developed.
One thing to notice
The bill does not say how much money the Crow Tribe will make. The public cannot see if the Tribe got a fair price.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
1 cosponsor: 1 Republicans.
- Jan 24, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Jan 24, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Indian Affairs · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Indian Affairs”
- Aug 5, 2026 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Committee on Indian Affairs. Ordered to be reported with an amendment in the nature of a substitute favorably”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 groups reported lobbying about this bill. They filed 4 reports from Dec 2025 to Jun 2026.
Those reports show $120,000 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 4 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 41% of bills with any report.
Steve Daines, who sponsored the bill, received $900,144 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- Crow Tribe of Indians — $60,000 in 2 reports
- Global Mining Holding Company, LLC — $60,000 in 2 reports
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- mineral rights — The right to dig up and sell coal, oil, metals, or other resources under the ground.
- federal trust — Land or property the federal government holds and manages for a tribe or person.
- Crow Tribe — A Native American tribe with land and government in Montana.
- surface land — The ground on top, separate from what is under it.
- lobbying — Trying to influence lawmakers about a bill. Companies and groups pay people to do this.
- PACs — Groups that collect money and give it to candidates for office.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (6,481 characters) on Aug 19, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,778 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 16, 2026 · page rendered 2026-11-01.
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