Crowell Wins D.C. Circuit Challenge to "Mill Site" Rule for National Mining Association

Washington – July 15, 2024: Crowell & Moring secured a victory on behalf of the National Mining Association in a longstanding dispute over a regulation governing mining on federal land.

In 2003, the Interior Department enacted a regulation that governs the use of “mill sites” to facilitate hardrock mining on federal land. The regulation was then challenged in 2009 by Earthworks and other aligned organizations. Along with a coalition of other industry intervenors including Barrick Gold, NMA intervened in the district court on the side of the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management to defend the regulation. In 2020, the district court granted summary judgment to the government and industry intervenors.

While the appeal was pending, Earthworks petitioned BLM to rescind the rule, and as a result, the case was put into abeyance. After a year of abeyance with no movement on the administrative petition, intervenors successfully persuaded the D.C. Circuit to allow merits briefing to proceed. On the merits, while the government invoked Chevron deference, intervenors urged the court of appeals to uphold the mill site regulation under a plain-language interpretation of the Mining Law of 1872, and it was intervenors’ position that prevailed.

On June 25, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed a district court decision upholding the regulation.

The Crowell team includes partners Elizabeth B. Dawson, Daniel W. Wolff, Thomas A. Lorenzen, and retired partner R. Timothy McCrum.

About Crowell & Moring LLP

Crowell & Moring is an international law firm with operations in the United States, Europe, MENA, and Asia. Drawing on significant government, business, industry and legal experience, the firm helps clients capitalize on opportunities and provides creative solutions to complex litigation and arbitration, regulatory and policy, and corporate and transactional issues. The firm is consistently recognized for its commitment to pro bono service as well as its programs and initiatives to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion.  

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