Oklahoma Sues the U.S. Department of the Interior Over a Coal Mining Conflict
Oklahoma is suing the U.S. Department of the Interior over the federal agency’s plan to strip Oklahoma of its jurisdiction to regulate coal mining on tribal reservations, Gov. Kevin Stitt announced Monday.
The lawsuit, filed last week in federal court in Oklahoma City, names as defendants U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement and that agency’s acting director, Glenda Owens.
The U.S. Department of the Interior notified the state earlier this year it planned to strip Oklahoma of its jurisdiction to regulate surface coal mining within the Muscogee Nation reservation following last year’s U.S. Supreme Court’s McGirt decision, which determined the tribe’s reservation in eastern Oklahoma was never disestablished by Congress.
