Category: In The News

Northwest Landowner Association Wins Appeal

Our client, Northwest Landowners Association, has been engaged in a fight to protect the property rights of private landowners in North Dakota since Senate Bill 2344 was introduced during the 2019 legislative session. Through lobbying, public outreach and education, and direct litigation, Northwest Landowners Association took on this fight to protect the rights of North … Read More

Norwegian Newspaper Features North Dakota Carbon Project Issues

Norwegian news organization “VG” recently ran a story about carbon capture in North Dakota.  Derrick was featured in the story, discussing questions that have been raised regarding the market that will develop around this project. One of our clients, Kurt Swenson, was also interviewed and raised questions and concerns about fair compensation and potential environmental … Read More

Overturned Pore Space Law In Dispute

The State of North Dakota and Continental Resources (an oil company) appealed a 2021 ruling that struck down a 2019 law governing pore space. Northeast District Judge Anthony Swain Benson ruled that this law violated state and U.S. constitutions, and that it allowed oil and gas companies to enact a “taking” of private property from … Read More

Pore Space Supreme Court Appeal In the News

Derrick was at the North Dakota Supreme Court yesterday, delivering oral arguments in an appeal related to the 2019 Pore Space legislation which was overturned by Judge Benson in 2021.  In that ruling, Judge Benson declared the law unconstitutional and concluded that it acted “to give North Dakota landowners’ value from pore space to the … Read More

Supreme Court to Hear Pore Space Oral Arguments

At Northwest Landowners‘ Information Expo last week, Derrick spoke about the pore space litigation currently in front of North Dakota’s high court. NWLA sued the state over a 2019 pore space law enacted by North Dakota legislators, which prevented landowners from fighting energy companies if their pore space was taken. Northeast District Judge Anthony Benson … Read More

Derrick to speak at Landowner Information Expo on March 16, 2022

Derrick will be speaking at the Northwest Landowners Association Information Expo on March 16th. The event is free to NWLA members, and there is a $20 fee for individuals and $100 for businesses to attend.  Derrick will give an update and lead discussion on pore space litigation. Many other landowner issues will be covered, and … Read More

Summit’s Midwest Carbon Express Pipeline Brings Landowner Concerns

Attorney Derrick Braaten was quoted in a recent Forum article about what’s shaping up to be the world’s largest carbon sequestration project in the world, the $4.5 billion Midwest Carbon Express. North Dakota is slated to be the final storage stop of the 2,000 mile pipeline network, capturing, moving, and ultimately storing carbon dioxide emissions … Read More

Sounding the Alarm – CARES Act Report

The Northwest Landowners Association recently commissioned a report from our firm regarding the CARES Act program. Their interest was related to how North Dakota used CARES Act funding to do reclamation work on abandoned oil wells in ND. The report provides context for thousands of pages of documents that were gathered related to the reclamation … Read More