PHOENIX - According to a report by the Associated Press, U.S. District Judge Emmett Sullivan in Washington has given the Navajo Nation the green light to pursue its $600 million lawsuit against the Peabody Group and California utility Southern California Edison Company.

According to the report, the District Judge rejected motions filed by the world's largest coal company and Southern California Edison Company that sought to have the case dismissed. A similar motion filed by the Phoenix area utility Salt River Project has not yet been ruled on by the District Judge.

"We are extremely pleased that this federal judge has kept the courthouse door open so that we can move forward with our case," Navajo Nation President Kelsey Begaye is quoted as saying. "We believe that the defendants' unscrupulous, secret, outside influence corrupted our trustee's judgment and did grave injury to the Navajo people."

Joined in the case by the Hopi Tribe [HTC], the Navajo Nation claims that between 1985 and 1987, a friend of then Interior Department Secretary Donald Hodel was hired to work with Hodel on the coal royalties without the knowledge or consent of the tribes, which violates the secretary's trust responsibilities and his duty to be responsive to tribal interests.

The Navajo Nation is appealing a ruling made last year in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims by Judge Lawrence Baskir, who ruled that Hodel violated the trust of the Navajo and Hopi tribes but awarded no money in the case.

The allegedly illegal negotiations among Peabody, Southern California Edison, and Interior Secretary Hodel resulted in a 1987 agreement to give the Navajo Nation only a 12.5 percent royalty on coal taken from two strip mines on the Arizona portion of the Navajo reservation. The Navajo Nation was asking for 20 percent. The attorneys for the Navajo Nation calculate the Navajo have lost $600 million from the illegal actions of the mega-industries and the Interior Secretary.

SOURCE: Associated Press via The Arizona Daily Star.