The federal government is refunding a Louisiana company $31,235 after canceling a Montana oil and gas lease it’s been seeking to develop for more than 33 years, The Associated Press reports.
But the head of the law firm representing Solenex, of Baton Rouge, says the 6,200-acre lease is worth far more.
William Perry Pendley with the Mountain States Legal Foundation says the company will continue its court fight to drill on the site in the Badger-Two Medicine wilderness.
Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced Thursday the agency was canceling the lease.
The Blackfoot Tribes of the U.S. and Canada say the government illegally issued the lease in 1982 on sacred land just outside Glacier National Park.
Montana leaders have praised the U.S. government’s decision to cancel the oil and gas lease. Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester says generations of Blackfeet families and recreationalists have enjoyed the Badger-Two Medicine area and that it’s one of those special places where drilling shouldn’t occur.
Democratic Montana Gov. Steve Bullock says the decision is a step toward preserving the Blackfeet’s cultural identity and sacred land.
Solenex has fought to drill for oil and gas on the site in a dispute that has lasted for decades.
