Denver Colorado – December 22, 2022 — Mountain States Legal Foundation on Tuesday filed a motion for summary judgment in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, asking the court to force the federal government to at long last approve a Montana energy lease it has improperly and unlawfully withheld from the late Sidney Longwell, founder of Solenex LLC, since he first won the permit to drill in 1982.
The filing marks a potential turning point in a David vs Goliath battle that has dragged-on, unresolved, for four decades, which saw the US Department of Interior use its immense powers to arbitrarily, capriciously, ruthlessly and unlawfully dash the dreams of an American energy entrepreneur who was done an injustice but refused to give up the fight as a matter of principle.
Longwell founded Solenex LLC and purchased a valid and proper oil and gas lease in the Lewis and Clark National Forest in Montana from the federal government in 1982. The BLM issued the lease without incident, challenge, or protest. The area had been a hotbed of oil and gas development since the 1940s — the Blackfeet Tribe had sold the land to the United States government for the express purpose of mineral development. In 1982, there was every indication that Mr. Longwell would soon be in possession of a producing well that would yield dividends for him and his family for decades to come.
But it was never to be. Instead, Longwell would spend the last 38 years of his life fighting for his right to even begin that work. Mr. Longwell passed away last year, with the job not just unfinished, but not even started. But his family and MSLF are carrying on the fight and determined to bring it to a successful conclusion because Mr. Longwell wouldn’t have it any other way.
Read our case page for a detailed summary of the case.
Click here to read the latest filing.
In 2015, following more than three decades of suspension and delay — and despite the government’s approving Solenex’s application for permit to drill on four separate occasions—the District Court determined that enough was enough, and ordered the Secretary of the Department of the Interior to issue a final determination on the suspension of Solenex’s lease. The Secretary responded by summarily cancelling the lease and disapproving the permit to drill, citing changes in agency policies and a purported procedural error by the Bureau of Land Management all the way back in 1981. The Secretary’s action exceeded her authority and violated multiple principles of contract law, including ignoring Solenex’s bona fide purchaser status and valid existing rights protections passed by Congress. The Secretary also relied on retroactive application of laws, regulations, and policies post-dating the issuance of Solenex’s lease by over a decade; and reversed 23-year-old agency positions, all without adequate explanation (or any explanation at all, in some cases). For these reasons and others explained in the brief MSLF is asking the Court to reverse the lease cancellation and at long last approve Longwell’s permit to drill.
“Justice delayed is justice denied, and there’s no better example of that than our client, Mr. Longwell, who spent 38 years of his life trying to defend his property right in an energy lease that initially was granted to him but then summarily denied,” said MSLF Senior Attorney Zhonette Brown. “We’re asking the court to do the just and lawful thing, as well as to hold the Interior Department accountable for its long history of improper actions, by restoring to this man’s family the drilling approvals he has been waiting for since 1984.”
“This battle is not just about a drilling permit,” added attorney David McDonald. “It’s about holding an immensely powerful government agency accountable when it arbitrarily, unlawfully and unjustly dashes the dreams of the American citizens the government is theoretically supposed to serve. Too many Americans, when facing such a battle, just fold their cards and fade away. But in Sidney Longwell, The Interior Department found an adversary with the tenacity to see the fight through to the end, not matter how much time or effort it took.”
In that sense, Longwell was fighting on behalf of many Americans who find themselves locked in a seemingly hopeless fight with the federal government. And we know there are plenty of Sidney Longwells out there, because we’ve represented more than our share of them.
MSLF attorneys Joseph Bingham and Kaitlyn Schiraldi, as well co-counsel Ivan London, also contributed to the filing.