“This Is the Right Thing to Do”: Energy CEO on Ending Leases to Drill Near Blackfeet Nation

Tatsey was just a teenager when the Reagan administration issued 47 oil and gas leases in the Badger-Two Medicine, a 130,000-acre region named for the Badger Creek and South Fork Two Medicine River drainages that is sandwiched between Glacier National Park, the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex, and the Blackfeet Nation. Like the Standing Rock Sioux, the Blackfeet protested the leases because of the area’s cultural value and because it was not consulted before the leases were issued. For 30 years the tribe fought for their cancellation, but as of 2013, 18 leases remained. That year, Solenex, LLC, a Louisiana-based company, sued the Interior Department for preventing it from developing its lease due to a moratorium established in 1997. With the fight reignited, the tribe partnered with several local, regional, and national environmental organizations. The goodwill fostered by this collaboration garnered national media attention as well as support from state and federal politicians and convinced the Interior Department to cancel Solenex’s lease earlier this spring. As the Blackfeet’s saga has progressed, the fight over the Dakota Access pipeline, which also stemmed from a failed consultation process, escalated over the course of the summer and fall. In spite of the Army Corps of Engineers’ recent decision to deny the final permit allowing the pipeline to cross the Missouri River and reopen the environmental review process, the election of the likely pro-development Trump administration has emboldened the pipeline’s proponents. Solenex, meanwhile, has said it will lobby the new administration to reinstate its lease, but when Devon Energy, the largest lease holder in the Badger, voluntarily relinquished its remaining 15 claims in mid-November, the Blackfeet and its partners scored an unexpected victory...more