A Baton Rouge energy company is asking a federal judge to reverse the cancellation of a 33-year-old oil and gas lease on land in Montana considered sacred to the Blackfoot tribes of the U.S. and Canada.
The Associated Press reports that Solenex filed court papers Monday seeking a judgment in the case that’s before U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington, D.C.
The 6,200-acre lease is in the Badger-Two Medicine area of the Lewis and Clark National Forest. It’s just outside Glacier National Park and the Blackfeet Indian Reservation.
U.S. Interior Department officials cancelled the lease in March. They said it was improperly issued in part because environmental studies did not consider the effects of drilling on the tribes.
Solenex sued the government in 2013 to force a decision after the dispute dragged on for decades. Attorneys for the firm said they would challenge any cancellation in court. They point out that the lease went through multiple environmental reviews over the years and was never said to be invalid until recently.
Blackfoot leaders say oil and gas leases were illegally issued in 1982. Government attorneys must respond to the company’s request to restore the lease within two weeks.
