The Trump Administration has entered Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s fight against the proposed $4 billion aluminum smelter at Inola, arguing in a federal court filing the state attorney general has not made his case against the project and the development should be allowed to move forward. It also charged that national security is at stake.
The Justice Department argued that if Drummond wins an injunction blocking the project, it “would impair national security.”
“Because of the project’s direct impact to the nation’s economic and national security, the United States has a substantial interest in this litigation,” stated Adam R. F. Gustafson, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department’s Environment & Natural Resource Division.
Drummond, in a lawsuit filed in June in Rogers County District Court and later moved to Tulsa U.S. District Court, argued the plant would cause environmental harm to the region and have negative impacts on neighbors of the project, but the Department of Justice argued in its recent filing that those claims have yet to be proven and could change if certain permits are granted by the State Department of Environmental Quality.
“Plaintiff has not shown that it is likely to suffer imminent irreparable harm without a preliminary injunction,” argued the U.S. government. “In fact, Plaintiff’s motion and petition are premature. As Plaintiff has recognized, no construction has occurred.”
The federal government wants Drummond’s complaint dismissed.
“If the Court does not dismiss the complaint, the Court should deny Plaintiff’s motion for preliminary injunction because (1) Plaintiff has not shown that it is likely to suffer imminent irreparable harm; (2) the balance of the equities cut against Plaintiff; and (3) an injunction would conflict with the public interest,” argued the attorneys for the DOJ.
The White House supports the project and when finished the project would be the first domestic primary aluminum smelter in more than four decades.
“The smelter addresses critical manufacturing vulnerabilities in the United States, secures
national technological sovereignty and rebuilds our domestic industrial base. In fact, primary aluminum is required for hundreds of critical defense systems and is a foundational pillar to domestic infrastructure,” argued the filing. It also stated the Oklahoma smelter project is a “cornerstone” of the U.S. Department of War strategy in securing domestic primary aluminum. The DOJ claimed that once completed, the smelter would rank as the largest primary aluminum production facility in the nation and more than double the country’s total output. It would also be the only smelter capable of meeting the nation’s “urgent” need for a domestic source of primary aluminum.
Oklahoma Primary Aluminum would own the facility and be jointly owned by Chicago-based Century Aluminum and Emirates Global Aluminum, a firm based in the United Arab Emirates. Century would hold 40% ownership, and the remainder would be held by EGA.
