Today’s blacklisted American finally wins his four-decade-long fight against the federal government
So Kafkaesque even Kafka would be astonished
Bring a gun to a knife fight: In 1982 Sidney Longwell bought a federal oil and gas lease from the Interior Department, with the intention of making money from the oil he extracted from Montana’s Lewis and Clark National Forest. Such leases were not unusual up until then, and in this case was obtained in a perfectly legal manner.
It was not to be, at least for the next four decades, as the Interior Department under five different Presidents repeatedly changed the rules and made arbitary decisions in an effort to somehow illegally cancel that lease. The story, as described by his non-profit law firm, Mountain States Legal Foundation, is quite ugly.
Sidney Longwell first bought his federal oil and gas lease in 1982. But after years of back-and-forth, the Clinton Administration suspended his lease indefinitely in 1993, placing it in regulatory limbo. A decade of fruitless bureaucratic review followed. Finally, in 2013, and with help from Mountain States Legal Foundation, he took the DOI to court, where the agency was forced to address Sidney’s lease. When pressed in 2016 for a decision, the DOI canceled the lease! So, Mountain States and Sidney sued them again.
Last fall, the court again ordered the reinstatement of Sidney’s lease and permit! As the court wrote, “It is time to put an end to this interminable, and insufferable, bureaucratic chess match.” We couldn’t agree more.
In the ensuing months, the DOI and its activist allies appealed the court’s ruling.
On September 9, 2023, Sidney Longwell’s fight was finally won when the DOI and the environmental groups agreed to settle, though Longwell himself is no longer alive to enjoy that victory, having passed away in 2020 at the age of 81. Both his company Solenex and his law firm had refused to give up, however, and in winning this victory did so in a way that included a significant financial settlement, some of which will be paid by the enviromental activists who helped iinstigate and extend the case.
The federal government and its allies who intervened in the case have signed settlement agreements that uphold Sidney Longwell’s hard-fought victories. And they have agreed to pay Solenex $2.62 million to resolve the case, with the federal government supplying $2 million, and the intervening activists supplying the other $624,700.
What makes this victory important is the settlement amount. Often in cases like this the non-profit law firm only wishes to make a legal point, and though it almost always win it frequently only asks for a symbolic small settlement, after the plainiff pays legal costs.
The non-profit law firm here, Mountain State Legal Foundation, did not do this. Instead, it fought and got a sizeable monetary payment. Such payments will hopefully make both the federal government and the environmental groups think twice before subjecting other innocent Americans to new and similar torturous legal battles.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
So Kafkaesque even Kafka would be astonished
Bring a gun to a knife fight: In 1982 Sidney Longwell bought a federal oil and gas lease from the Interior Department, with the intention of making money from the oil he extracted from Montana’s Lewis and Clark National Forest. Such leases were not unusual up until then, and in this case was obtained in a perfectly legal manner.
It was not to be, at least for the next four decades, as the Interior Department under five different Presidents repeatedly changed the rules and made arbitary decisions in an effort to somehow illegally cancel that lease. The story, as described by his non-profit law firm, Mountain States Legal Foundation, is quite ugly.
Sidney Longwell first bought his federal oil and gas lease in 1982. But after years of back-and-forth, the Clinton Administration suspended his lease indefinitely in 1993, placing it in regulatory limbo. A decade of fruitless bureaucratic review followed. Finally, in 2013, and with help from Mountain States Legal Foundation, he took the DOI to court, where the agency was forced to address Sidney’s lease. When pressed in 2016 for a decision, the DOI canceled the lease! So, Mountain States and Sidney sued them again.
Last fall, the court again ordered the reinstatement of Sidney’s lease and permit! As the court wrote, “It is time to put an end to this interminable, and insufferable, bureaucratic chess match.” We couldn’t agree more.In the ensuing months, the DOI and its activist allies appealed the court’s ruling.
On September 9, 2023, Sidney Longwell’s fight was finally won when the DOI and the environmental groups agreed to settle, though Longwell himself is no longer alive to enjoy that victory, having passed away in 2020 at the age of 81. Both his company Solenex and his law firm had refused to give up, however, and in winning this victory did so in a way that included a significant financial settlement, some of which will be paid by the enviromental activists who helped iinstigate and extend the case.
The federal government and its allies who intervened in the case have signed settlement agreements that uphold Sidney Longwell’s hard-fought victories. And they have agreed to pay Solenex $2.62 million to resolve the case, with the federal government supplying $2 million, and the intervening activists supplying the other $624,700.
What makes this victory important is the settlement amount. Often in cases like this the non-profit law firm only wishes to make a legal point, and though it almost always win it frequently only asks for a symbolic small settlement, after the plainiff pays legal costs.
The non-profit law firm here, Mountain State Legal Foundation, did not do this. Instead, it fought and got a sizeable monetary payment. Such payments will hopefully make both the federal government and the environmental groups think twice before subjecting other innocent Americans to new and similar torturous legal battles.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I hope you are right about them thinking twice but I highly doubt it. Liberal progressives never learn and never stop.
The lie, the agenda, and the deception are the poin, not the environment or the truth
Time for the Department of the Interior to die.
$624K. They won’t be out a penny. Soros will write ’em a check
American / Western law and how it is structured: In the Objective.
The government and how it and those who populate it operate: In the Subjective.
The only resulting condition if the government is allowed to run rough shod over the people is authoritarianism.
And it took this man, now dead, 40 years to drag the government back to the Objective.
The problem here? The government is essentially eternal just like a corporate entity and in time will outlast all and will with certainty drag everyone into authoritarianism. It can do nothing else.
And the only thing that by design that can at least slowdown that eternal process is people like the man who won his fight but who is now dead.
Now that is a sad, frustrating and ironic situation we find ourselves presented with.
And still the political warfare battle rages, why?
Because we can do nothing else. It is either that or bow down and surrender.
How do we fight political warfare in America?
Lawyers, Courts and Money.
Unfortunately this does not “cost” the Government anything! WE the TAXPAYERS are footing the bills for the obstruction, litigations, and settlements! The small portion for the activists will be paid from their TAX FREE DONATIONS so once again, the TAXPAYERS lose, indirectly!
NO, we need a new LAW that states “If the LAW is VIOLATED to infringe on individual rights then the PEOPLE making the DECISIONS are to be held PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE AND LIABLE for DAMAGES”!!
This is the strategy of the “Progressives”: pass a law that is obviously unconstitutional. When challenged in courts and deemed unconstitutional file an appeal. Lather rinse repeat.
Ten years (or forty years in this case) and ten million dollars in attorney fees they lose the final appeal.
Sometimes hey ignore the courts and do not comply.
Or, they just pass another law resulting in the same effect of the first law.
Lather rinse repeat. Ten years and ten million dollars later…
The tactics of the Progressives are that while their strategies are being played out in the courts their minions engage in violent activities to inflame the emotions.
OK, Solenex won their case and got a good sized settlement, but did they drill on the lease ? Will they ever drill on the lease ,assuming they haven’t yet ?