Cloud Peak Energy Inc. is a company headquartered in Gillette, Wyoming which mines coal in the Powder River Basin.

[1][2] In its 2009 Annual Report Rio Tinto stated that it held a 48.3% stake in Cloud Peak Energy and its directly owned mines.

An analyst pointed to severe declines in demand for Powder River coal from markets in East Asia and the United States.

The facilities of Cloud Peak's Spring Creek Mine are located directly to the east of the reservation and will be available for the use of Big Metal.

Among them are the Institute for Energy Research, a think tank that denies the scientific consensus on climate change and opposes renewable energy, the Center for Consumer Freedom, the pro-fossil American Legislative Exchange Council, which says that climate change is uncertain, the Montana Policy Institute which claims that earth is cooling, Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity, dark-money-groups such as Crossroads GPS and several other groups and organizations.