Dealing with the federal government can feel like dealing with a brick wall. No matter how punctual you are in your meetings and phone calls with the wall, no matter how long you reason, or how hard you yell, the only response you receive is cold, hard, indifference.
Well, after 30 years of banging their heads against the brick wall that is the United States Department of the Interior (DOI), the Ray Family might finally be getting a breakthrough.
The Ray Family has been prospecting and mining the deserts of the American Southwest for generations. Emerson Ray first staked what would become the Cima Cinder Mine on three extinct cinder cones (essentially, ancient and inactive volcanos) about 70 miles southwest of Las Vegas in 1948, and watched his children and grandchildren grow up playing in the desert wilderness surrounding the mine. Cima was both a profitable business and, in the truest sense, a home for more than 50 years before the government shut them down.
In 1991, the family decided to patent their mining claims amid the growing hostility to mineral extraction within certain political circles. The Rays completed their application and received notice that everything was in order. Relying on years of DOI practice, the family expected their application to be finally approved and receive a certification without difficulty.
But in 1993, the Clinton Administration ordered a screeching halt to patent applications and gave the Secretary of the Interior the authority to grant or deny any claims that had already been submitted.
Instead, the Secretary took no action. The government had a moral and legal obligation to make a decision, and not leave families like the Rays hanging in permanent limbo. The government’s inaction made it impossible for Rayco, LLC—the company run by the family—to get its plan of operations approved. As a result, the family business tragically fell into decay when the government forced them out.
MSLF got involved in 2019, filing a court case to compel the government to take action. In response, the government denied the Rays’ application almost entirely and declared all but a small fraction of their mining claims null and void. Their reason: the government asserts that when the Rays amended the location certificates for their mining claims in 1991 to correct some minor errors the documents contained, that was the equivalent of staking brand new claims under a law that was passed after Emerson Ray’s original claim in 1948.
On Friday, MSLF attorneys filed a motion for summary judgment on the Rays’ behalf in federal court, asking the court to set aside the government’s illegal decision, return the Rays’ claims to them, and grant the patent that should have been awarded decades ago. For the first time, a neutral decision-maker is hearing the family’s story in full and will have an opportunity to pass judgment on the government for its arbitrary and capricious behavior.
It is hard to say what the New Year will bring, but we and the Rays are optimistic that justice is in the cards for 2023.