Tax-dollar dependent General Motors is trying to cancel its contract with the nation's only platinum and palladium mine, the Stillwater Mine in Montana's Beartooth Mountains, even as it evidently retains contracts with foreign mines.

The news came out this week as GM emerged from bankruptcy as a new company in which the U.S. Treasury is the primary shareholder. It has ignited outrage in Montana and company leaders.

"Damn right I'm mad," Gov. Brian Schweitzer told Lee Newspapers Friday. "They reached into my pocket so they can stay in business and then they take actions to put Montanans out of business."

Schweitzer this week sent a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers, director of the National Economic Council, objecting to GM's efforts. Geithner and Summers together head up the president's Auto Task Force.

Platinum, palladium and rhodium are metals needed to build catalytic converters, the part of modern cars that remove pollution from tail-pipe exhaust. Those metals are mined in three places, Columbus: Russia, South Africa and Montana, said John Beaudry, public affairs manager for the Stillwater Mining Co.

General Motors told the company that with its reduced operations, it no longer needed metals from the Stillwater Mine, Beaudry said.

Yet, automakers cannot build cars without such metals, Schweitzer said, which means the majority government-owned company evidently intends to buy its platinum, palladium and rhodium from foreign mines.

"Nothing against those countries," he said. "But it's not like steel that's produced in 30 countries. This is Russia and South Africa. A little shaky. Montana? Solid as rock."

Schweitzer said his problem with the cancellation was two-fold. First, platinum and related metals are of strategic importance to the U.S. auto industry. Should anything happen to the other mines in Russia and South Africa, all auto manufacturing in the United States would cease, he said.

Second, it is wrong for a company so reliant on U.S. tax dollars to make efforts to throw fellow Americans out of work while continuing to buy identical materials from foreign mines.

Representatives for both GM and the U.S. Treasury did not return several calls seeking comment for this story.

Beaudry said the Stillwater Mining Company will file an objection to the move Monday through GM's bankruptcy proceedings.

The global recession has already hurt the company, he said, forcing around 400 hundred lay-offs and a re-organization in which employees have undertaken efforts to make Stillwater Mine a "low-cost" business.

The company has two contracts, one with GM that was to run through 2012 and a second with Ford Motor Company that is set to run through 2010. Virtually all the palladium produced at the mine is sold to those companies, he said, along with 14 percent of the platinum.

Stillwater Mine also recycles platinum group metals from catalytic converters removed from junked cars and sells that metal on the open market.

Company Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Francis McAllister released a statement Wednesday in which he said the company could potentially stay in business without the GM contract.

"Should (metal) prices decline over the next several months, loss of the GM contract ultimately could put our employees, their families and the communities where we live in economic jeopardy," he said. "I find it ironic that GM is willing to ship American taxpayer dollars to our competitors overseas while we struggle to maintain economic operations here at home."

Standard & Poor, a global credit rating company, on Thursday placed Stillwater Mining on its CreditWatch negative.

The change, said analyst Maurice Austin, means he believes there is a 50 percent chance or better that Stillwater Mining's credit rating could change.

"It means we have to take a closer look in light of (GM's) announcement," he said.

Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., also sent a letter to Geithner and Summers urging them to reconsider GM's plans.

"If American tax dollars are good enough, American palladium ought to be good enough, too," Rehberg said in a statement to Lee Newspapers.

Senate ethics rules prohibit U.S. senators from getting involved in ongoing legal matters, like the GM bankruptcy. However. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., has been in contact with mine leaders regarding the situation and the Baucus office said the senator is now looking at what options are available for helping the mine.

"Senator Baucus knows how important the Stillwater Mine is to not only south central Montana, but to the entire state," said Ty Matsdorf, a Baucus spokesman. "He will continue to work with the Stillwater Mining Company, Governor Schweitzer and Senator Tester to help protect the folks who work there and the good-paying job it creates."

Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and a member of the Senate Banking Committee, is looking at "all possible options of federal policy that could be helpful to the folks at Stillwater," said Patrick Devlin, a Tester spokesman.

"Jon strongly supports the Stillwater Mine and knows how important it is to Montana and the nation's auto industry," Devlin said.