Solonex asks judge to reverse DOI decision to cancel Badger Two Medicine lease

A Louisiana-based oil and gas company is asking a federal judge to reinstate an oil and gas lease in the Badger Two Medicine region just south of Glacier National Park.

In a court brief filed April 15, Solonex Inc. asks federal Judge Richard Leon to reverse a decision by Department of Interior Sec. Sally Jewell to cancel the 6,200 acre lease.

Solonex, back in 1982 leased the tract for oil and gas exploration for $1 an acre. But the company was never allowed to drill. In March, facing a 24-hour deadline by Leon to make a decision on the lease, Jewell opted to cancel it entirely.

In briefs supporting their decision to cancel, the agencies claim the leases were issued in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act, as a full environmental impact statement was never completed prior to the lease being issued.

The Blackfeet Tribe has fought the lease from the onset and considers the Badger-Two Medicine Region sacred ground.

But Solonex, which is managed by Louisiana oilman Sydney Longwell, claimed in its latest complaint that Jewell overstepped her legal authority when she canceled the lease and her decision was arbitrary, considering that the federal government considered the lease valid for decades prior to her decision.

Solonex initially filed suit in 2013 against the DOI and Leon has been sympathetic to the company to a degree, noting a three-decade delay on the validity of the lease was unheard of.

“Since the (drill permit) was first approved in 1985, the lease has been suspended for more than 29 years! No combination of excuses could possibly justify such ineptitude or recalcitrance for such an epic period of time,” Leon wrote in an August 2015 ruling which eventually forced the DOI to make a decision.

As for the sacred ground argument, Solonex refutes that as well, noting their were no objections to an underground gas pipeline that runs through the area, not far from the company’s lease.

There is plenty of political history in the case. Solonex is represented by the Mountain States Legal Foundation, a property-rights group founded by former Department of Interior Sec. James Watt, who was in office when Solonex first obtained the lease years ago.