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You may remember Dateline Resources (ASX:DTR) as the ASX-listed explorer with a gold-and-rare-earths play in the U.S. which shot to fame when the company was once namedropped by Donald Trump on Truth Social.
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While that generated a lot of attention at the time, what somewhat flew under the radar earlier this year, during an already depressing April, was a lawsuit filed against Dateline’s Colosseum project.
On Monday, Dateline investors learned the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has gotten involved in the lawsuit, and it put to the relevant court that in its view, Dateline’s Colosseum approvals are up to scratch. In turn, Dateline’s ASX-listed shares jumped +25% higher on Monday in a fairly quiet day on the market.
The lawsuit Dateline is facing has been filed by the U.S.-based National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), a leading environmental advocacy body not unlike Australia’s Environmental Defenders’ Office NGO network.
They’re a community-led organisation hiring solicitors to file administrative lawsuits around controversial projects in order to delay their development, and it’s one of the few blunt weapons true believer environmental lawyers generally have to rely on.
The Colosseum project is ultimately said to threaten a wide number of rare flora; it’s located in a massive national park called the Mojave National Preserve.
The issue here for Dateline, really, is the mixed blessing and curse of being favoured by the Trump Administration. Because when the Trump-led regulator greenlit on-site works at the Colosseum project last year, according to NPCA, it reinstated existing but ‘outdated’ approvals.
During the Biden years, according to the NPCA, the project had effectively been blocked. And if NPCA’s argument is found correct, when the Trump-led Department of Interior reversed an internal decision restricting Colosseum last year, it did so without issuing fresh paperwork.
Which is a frustrating delay for Dateline, but on the whole, a fairly minor legal issue, and clearly a result of a top-heavy and ideological political administration.
That same consideration explains the unusual involvement of the Department of Justice in an environmental admin lawsuit against Dateline.
It’s also perhaps curious the U.S. DOJ has relied on emails from the NPCA referencing the approvals as valid, instead of turning to the Department of Interior to simply produce existing permits, or apply for a grace period to reapply.
Dateline noted Monday it has set up its own counterclaim outside the involvement of the US government, but ‘broadly in line’ with the DOJ. Make of that what you will.
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