{"id":298181,"date":"2024-01-22T20:24:01","date_gmt":"2024-01-22T19:24:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=298181"},"modified":"2024-01-22T20:24:04","modified_gmt":"2024-01-22T19:24:04","slug":"judge-orders-wind-farm-dismantled-in-win-for-tribal-sovereignty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=298181","title":{"rendered":"Judge Orders Wind Farm Dismantled in Win for Tribal Sovereignty"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Bonner Russell Cohen<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capping a legal battle that had raged for over a decade, a federal judge in late December handed the Osage Nation a major victory by ordering wind farm developers to dismantle dozens of turbines they had erected on tribal land in northeastern Oklahoma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By ordering the scuttling of 84 turbines spread over 8,400 acres of land, along with the removal of underground lines, overhead transmission lines, and meteorological towers, U.S. Court of International Trade Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves essentially ruled that the renewable energy project, known as Osage Wind, should never have been constructed in the first place because the developers \u2013 Osage Wind LLC, Enel Kansas LLC, and Enel Green Power North America \u2013 did not have the required lease from the Osage Minerals Council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe developers failed to acquire a mining lease during or after construction, as well as after issuance of the 10th<\/sup> Court of Appeals\u2019 decision hold that a mining lease was required,\u201d Choe-Groves ruled, according to Tulsa World<\/em> (Dec. 22). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn the record before the Court, it is clear that Defendants are actively avoiding the leasing requirement,\u201d Choe-Groves said. \u201cPermitting such behavior would create the prospect for further interference with the Osage Mineral Council\u2019s authority by Defendants or others wishing to develop the minerals lease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Court concludes that Defendants\u2019 past and present refusal to obtain a lease constitutes interference with the sovereignty of the Osage Nation and is sufficient to constitute irreparable injury.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reference to minerals is key to understanding the case. Wind turbines not only soar into the air from the surface of the land. Their construction also requires the subsurface smashing of rocks and other excavation necessary to ground the turbines.  The Osage Nation and its Minerals Council have claimed for years that this subsurface excavation activity constitutes mining and is covered by the tribe\u2019s mineral rights.  And for that the developers needed a lease from the Osage Mining Council which they never sought. The developers began leasing the surface rights in 2013 but never bothered to acquire the subsurface mineral rights.  In the end, that was their undoing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA Win for Indian Country\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, the long, and expensive, court battle took its toll on the ultimately victorious Osage Nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI hope no other tribe has to do what we had to do,\u201d Osage Minerals Council Chairman Everett Walker to Tulsa World<\/em> in an interview. \u201cThis is a win not only for the Osage Minerals Council; this is a win for Indian Country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are a lot of smaller tribes that couldn\u2019t have battled this long, but that\u2019s why we\u2019re Osages,\u201d Walker added. \u201cWe\u2019re here, and this is our homeland, and we are going to protect it at all costs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The battle between the Osage Nation and the wind-farm developers got underway in 2011 and has lasted through the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations.  Throughout the litigation, the Interior Department, which administers the tribe\u2019s mineral rights, has supported the Osages\u2019 claims. Even the Biden administration, whose political appointees at Interior have enthusiastically greenlighted wind and solar projects on federal land, stuck with the tribe on the question of mineral rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While seeing 84 giant wind turbines disappear will be a bitter pill to swallow for Biden climate crusaders at Interior, they appear to have concluded that this was the wrong fight under the wrong circumstances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bonner Russell Cohen, Ph. D., is a senior policy analyst with CFACT.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article originally appeared at\u00a0Real Clear Energy<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Capping a legal battle that had raged for over a decade, a federal judge in late December handed the Osage Nation a major victory by ordering wind farm developers to dismantle dozens of turbines they had erected on tribal land in northeastern Oklahoma.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":298184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Capping a legal battle that had raged for over a decade, a federal judge in late December handed the Osage Nation a major victory by ordering wind farm developers to dismantle dozens of turbines they had erected on tribal land in northeastern Oklahoma.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691825652,691818772,691818879],"class_list":{"0":"post-298181","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-osage-nation","9":"tag-u-s-president-joe-biden","10":"tag-wind-farm","12":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/00Osage-Wind.jpg?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1fzn","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":292542,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=292542","url_meta":{"origin":298181,"position":0},"title":"Federal Judge Sides with Osage Nation, Orders Removal Of 84 Wind Turbines","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"24\/12\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"The Osage Nation won a massive ruling in Tulsa federal court on Wednesday that requires Enel to dismantle a 150-megawatt wind project it built in Osage County despite the tribe\u2019s repeated objections. 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